The Kindest Curse
by Quillusion
Summary: The war is won and over; Hermione is working as a commercial curse-breaker. What would bring an old adversary to ask her for help in breaking an ancient curse to defeat an enemy already vanquished? Chapter 5 now up!
1. The Importance of Stationery

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The Kindest Curse

by Quillusion

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Disclaimer: JKR invented them, and she still owns them, but she lets Warner Brothers and several other big fish play with them. I must beg forgiveness in lieu of permission, as I am not worthy. I am also not making any money, or attempting to show disrespect. Quite, quite the contrary.

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Rating: If this were a book, it would be in the Fiction section at Barnes and Noble. Any lemony scenes that may or may not emerge (the muse is not telling) will be posted at aff.net or other sites, with an altered version here. 

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Summary: The war is long since over and has passed from news into history, and Hermione Granger has settled into life as a commercial curse-breaker. But the past resurfaces when someone she has long since forgotten returns, asking for her help in finishing a task left unrecognized and undone by the heroes of the war. Can a curse-breaker's art uncloak the heroes and villains, as well as the secrets of a 300 year old curse? 

Author's Note: this story was inspired by the Marriage Law challenge on WIKTT, although it has almost nothing to do with it. I fear it will meet very few of the criteria- if any- for that challenge, but I'm glad for the inspiration the challenge provided, just the same. The challenge itself is absolutely delicious, (as are many of the responses!), but fundamentally it requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and willingness to accept uncharacteristic behavior in order to work. Because of my casting choices, I must rely a great deal on the reader's store of these qualities to get through the first few chapters, so I don't want to push my luck. If I do my job right later, it'll all pay off, though. ;-) I've always enjoyed the challenge of keeping characters 'in character' while maneuvering them where I want them to go, but I've no wish to strain your credibility further than good sense will allow. After all, it's all fun and games until someone loses their interest in the story! 

Chapter 1

It was snowing. 

Hermione Granger only registered the fact when Crookshanks batted a lazy paw at the clumps of snowflakes ticking almost imperceptibly against the windowpane. Looking up at her elderly pet, she caught the expression on his squashed-looking face; indolence always warred with interest in the cat's expression nowadays, though he was too old now to bother with the motivation required to appease his feline curiosity. He was sitting next to the window, effortlessly blocking most of the light from her desk lamp, and he was unlikely to stir until dinnertime from the warm nest he'd made of her favorite cashmere shawl. That would teach her not to hang it up as soon as she came home.

"Pretty, isn't it, Crooks?" she asked, scratching him behind the ears and smiling when he purred with delight. She dropped her quill into the stand in front of her, massaging her tired hands to release the scrivener's palsy that had settled into the muscles. She cast an eye over the letter drying before her, wondering if there were anything she needed to add in a post script before sending it to Fiji, where her parents had opted to spend the winter.

_Dear Mum and Dad,_

Greetings from wintry Great Brrritain! It's gotten cold out in the last week or two, no surprise there, and I'm sure you and Dad are congratulating yourselves on having had a very good idea indeed. It's about time you enjoyed your retirement, but I do wish I could have joined you for at least a little while while Fall was busy becoming just autumn. It's looking to be another dull November. 

I shouldn't say that, really; work is going well, and I'm getting some of the most fascinating cases these days. UnRavel has acquired a reputation for top-notch magical reversal, and between the private sector and the military contracts from the Ministry and the Muggle military, things are picking up and we're doing quite a business. And you thought I'd molder away in an office, Dad! I knew this job would be better than my first one, even if it took a few years of hard work to get things going. I've gotten farther in two years here than I ever did in five with Meers Consulting. I'm certainly reaping the rewards of my effort now, with the clients I've had recently- and I'm finally getting to travel to more interesting places than Brighton for consultations. The work's fascinating, far more than I thought it would be when I started, and I've put all the hard-earned skills of a bookworm triple major to work many times over. I suppose I owe Professor Snape a debt of gratitude for that; I wouldn't have thought to add Arithmancy and Transfigurations to Potions if he hadn't remarked that my overeager tendencies must have finally been petering out if I were only planning one major. I ought to let him know what I've done with his advice, even if he probably wouldn't have classified the remark as 'advice', per se. 

Which reminds me- I should tell Bill Weasley that all the tricks he taught me that summer at the Burrow are being applied with conscientious regularity. He'd get a kick out of that. Next time I see him, I'm sure we'll spend hours talking shop; Molly pointed out last week that my job isn't really all that different from Bill's, and she has a point- he just gets the more exotic locations. I suppose he also does more treasure recovery than I do, although now that I think about it, that rather depends on what one considers treasure. The definition is likely different for someone with money and someone without... and for someone with power, and someone without.

I apologize for my cramped penmanship- the furnace is acting up, and my flat is on the cold side these days. The repairman will be coming tomorrow, but for now, I've got Crookshanks and my blankets for warmth, and my hands are cold enough to make writing difficult. Just once, I wish I could be sent to break a curse in Fiji. There aren't many curses laid in Fiji- or in the Caribbean, for that matter. It must be the climate; I suppose it mellows even the bad guys. Oh well- I'm sure Fiji has its own delightful little dark side; it's such a lovely place, though, that I think I'll just let it remain a rosy little perfect paradise in my mind. Why spoil such a beautiful thing with reality?

I'm sorry I couldn't tell you about some of the jobs I've worked on recently in my last letter, but now that matters are settled I can say a little. Last month I removed a concealment charm that had been in place for almost a hundred years, and found a birth certificate. I can't say whose, of course, but that little find had quite a few ramifications, as you can imagine. It all came right in the end, though, and I got a bonus for my trouble. For another client I recovered a treasure map, if you can believe such things exist- no word on the treasure yet, since it's supposedly on an Unplottable island. Maggs is working on decrypting the rest of the map with the directions on it, so I'll keep you posted. Watch the social column for anyone new named the Count of Monte Cristo, just in case.

You asked me once, Dad, what made me choose this career after everything I've been through, with the war and all. I thought a lot about your question, and I think I've finally come up with an answer of sorts. I like having a job where the answers have to be invented- they can't be looked up. I've gotten so good at finding answers in books that it's not a challenge any more; I want to find things that no one else has found and written down. Maybe it's that I want to be the one writing the books now, not the one reading them. Yes, there are times when the answers I find reveal nothing but darkness and horror, just as you said; but there are many times, perhaps a surprising number of them, when the answers lead to closure, enlightenment, joy, peace. In those moments, it's as if I can reclaim a little of what Voldemort stole from us the way I might reclaim a lost jewel or a secret letter. I like that feeling, even if I know it doesn't mean I've erased all the harm the Dark Lord did in his years of power. 

Well, Crookshanks is starving, and if I don't feed him soon the RSPCA will have my head on a platter or know the reason for his caterwauling. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville say hello, and of course I miss you both terribly. Once the holidays are over and work is less hectic, I'm hoping to Apparate over in stages for a visit, but it takes time that I don't have at the moment, so I must content myself with these letters. There was a time when I thought it was terribly silly to bother writing a letter when you could simply pick up the phone- but living in the wizarding world has taught me the beauty of sending and receiving mail. Every envelope with that familiar writing on it is precious and welcome, its contents sure to bring delight- unlike the uncertain tidings of a ringing phone. And besides, I no longer grumble about the time difference and the cost of long-distance phone service.

Enjoy your next week in paradise; I miss you!

Love always,

Hermione

She addressed the envelope carefully, then called the small spotted owl that her parents had given her for graduation. 

"Here you go, Nicodemus," she said, tying the letter to his ankle. "Do you need something to eat before you go?"

The owl tweaked his head sideways in the odd gesture that Hermione had long since learned to interpret as 'yes', and so she went to the refrigerator and pulled out the large roast beef sandwich she'd bought at the delicatessen down the road. It was far too large for her alone, even if she had bought it for her dinner. Slicing off an owl-sized portion of the sandwich, she cut it up and set it before the owl, and he bolted his meal down with a flurry of feathers. Blinking with sleepy gratitude, the owl turned toward the window and waited for Hermione to open it.

"Take the letter to my parents in Fiji," Hermione instructed, and the owl sighed a little. It was a long trip. "They'll have fresh fish for you," she coaxed, and the bird settled its feathers and spread its wings. Nicodemus did like fish, after all. At least, she thought he did; he'd eaten three quarters of her takeout sushi one night when she'd gone to the door for a moment to accept a parcel from the postman.

When the owl's form had vanished in the distance, Hermione returned to the refrigerator and picked out one of the half- used cans of cat food for Crookshanks. His teeth were sensitive now, and he preferred the softer texture of Muggle cat food to anything else she had found. She put the food into his dish and cast a heating charm on it, then set the fragrantly steaming meal before her cat with a little flourish.

She seated herself at her desk again, picking up the remaining post and sorting through it while she ate her sandwich. Bill, bill, advertisement for carpet cleaning company, bill... credit card offer. She tossed that into the sink and with a casual "Incendio!" the paper combusted and vanished. 

Wedding invitation- from her cousin Sherry in Dorsetshire- and a magazine subscription offer, then two more credit card offers. One Incendio did for the latter three. The last few items were catalogs and circulars, and she flipped through them while she finished her meal. Finding nothing she wanted, she put the catalogs in the recycling bin. No sense burning what could be recycled without risk to her credit report. 

She was about to move to the couch to enjoy a cup of tea before going to bed, when she remembered the last of her work mail. She had had enough in her box that afternoon that the stack of mail had outlasted her patience with her office mate's loud experiments. Josh Chibbens was working on a cursed safe that would have been straightforward enough, if not for the curse's ability to detect near-breaking and begin to emit ear-piercing shrieks loud enough to rob the curse breaker of consciousness. She'd found Josh on the floor after the first attempt, and after a quick trip to St Mungo's he'd been back at work, as eager as she had ever been to try something new and unknown. Which was laudable, except for the interruption to her concentration. 

The first several items were sensitive memos- another _Incendio_ took care of those once they had been read- and then there were a few pieces of correspondence relating to recently completed cases. There was also an invitation to a retirement reception for one of the elder members of the firm, whom she had never met and had only once seen in the hallways. More memos (followed by flashes in the sink), a copy of a requisition that had been approved, two final reports of cases in which she'd been peripherally involved, a notice for a series of seminars to be sponsored by Gringott's in Amsterdam, and she was all but done.

The last piece of mail was heavy in her hand, despite its slender size; it was smaller than the others, and she realized it was personal stationery. Good stationery, to judge by the thick, crisp feel of the paper. Curious, she turned the envelope over and looked at the return address. She had to read it twice to make certain she hadn't misread it.

Lucius Malfoy.

What on earth?

She frowned, studying the envelope and turning it over in her hands. She could think of no reason in this world why Lucius Malfoy would care to address a letter to her. She knew it was his handwriting; she'd seen enough of it during the last stage of the war to be familiar with the clipped script he used for notes and letters. Loathing and gratitude made odd bedfellows, but they were both of them tangled up in the sheets of paper she'd pored over in those last frantic days, carved into her memory with slashes of green ink and sharp penstrokes, preserved in unfading brilliance with her last sight of him, ten years ago.

She hadn't thought of him even once in over eight- and despite herself, she felt a twinge of remorse.

After a long, slow breath, she lifted her letter opener and deftly slid it under the flap of the envelope. The silver blade slit the envelope open with the faintest whisper of tearing fibers, and she slid the folded sheet of paper out and opened it to the light.

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Dear Miss Granger,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. I am writing to you on a matter of professional interest, although I confess the matter is somewhat delicate and I am reluctant to trust details to paper. Your skills are highly recommended to me by many of my acquaintances- in particular Professor Severus Snape, who paid you the highest compliment of which I believe he is capable when he told me that you were- and I quote- 'less idiotic than anyone else I've ever taught'. Such unguarded praise from this quarter suggests that Severus might actually be fond of you, if such a notion is credible with respect to that particular gentleman. But if adding the approbation of Albus Dumbledore to the list will convince you of my sincerity, then I may tell you that he, too, has recommended I approach you with this particular problem.

I am well aware that this letter has likely come as quite a surprise to you, and that you may have many reasons for not wishing to do business with me, Miss Granger. I cannot blame anyone but myself for that simple truth, and I can only offer you my honest word that the matter which I wish to lay before you should interest you in both a professional and a personal capacity. I shall have to trust that your Gryffindor sense of curiosity will aid my cause and win your agreement. 

At five o'clock on Friday the 17th I will wait for you at Flourish and Blott's in Diagon Alley. If you are inclined to forgiveness- or simple curiosity- please meet me there. I should be pleased to discuss the matter over dinner. If you have any questions, or wish to meet at a different time and place, please owl me at the return address above and I will be glad to accommodate you in any way possible.

Sincerely, 

L. Malfoy

Hermione reread the letter twice more, scarcely able to believe its civil tone. She'd never in a hundred years thought Lucius Malfoy could be so polite to anyone, least of all her! All the same, it gave her more insight than she'd ever before had into how he'd charmed the rest of the wizarding world. If this was how he behaved to people who held a high place in his esteem, it was a wonder he hadn't become Minster of Magic.

Her intellectual reaction notwithstanding, Hermione's immediate instinct was to burn the letter, to ignore it, or to write a scathing refusal and send it straight through the Floo to his home. She didn't much care for the idea of revisiting the past of which he was such a vivid reminder. Her hand was already gripping the paper in preparation for a savage tear when she forced herself to stop, putting the letter down and folding her hands on top of it.

There was no reason for her to behave this way. Lucius Malfoy was addressing her in her professional capacity, with Albus Dumbledore's and Severus Snape's encouragement. That meant that whatever he wanted to discuss was real, and important. This was likely to be far more interesting than anything currently on her desk at the office, and that was saying something. Returning to her writing desk, she opened a drawer and drew out some of her own professional stationery- she could hardly send common parchment back after the lovely stuff he'd sent to her- and penned a short reply, taking the time to form her letters with more flair than she usually did. Something about his letter had stirred her sense of pride.

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

I confess I was surprised to find your letterhead on my desk, but the contents of your letter did indeed intrigue me. I would be pleased to meet you on the 17th at 5 PM to discuss your situation and determine if I may be of some assistance to you. I look forward to our meeting. 

She studied the letter for a moment, thinking. Things looked much different from eight year's calm distance than they had in the immediate aftermath of the war, and she was suddenly aware that, even after the confusing events of the war's climax and aftermath, she'd never stopped to consider the conflicting things he had said and done. She hadn't known what to make of them at the time, and she hadn't had the time to really think about them. Eventually, the necessity of spending her time and energy on other things had become the unquestioning acceptance of old and never-challenged thoughts, and eight years had passed without her realizing it. 

But those eight years had not given her any new insight. She still didn't understand him, and that still unsettled her. She didn't trust him, and the old uncertainties rose easily in her mind. She'd ignored him because she hadn't known what to do with him in her mind: leave him a villain in black and white, or accept the shades of grey and wonder if he might be something else, as well.

Perhaps ignoring the matter had been a mistake. After all, she mused, no one- no matter how atrocious their actions- believes they are evil. Before she consigned him permanently to the ranks of lost causes, she ought to hear his side of things, judge for herself what manner of man he was to have done what he did. If Severus Snape had once been given a chance to explain himself and make restitution, it was not for her to deny Lucius Malfoy the same chance.

The thought prompted her to set quill to parchment again.

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And may I add, Mr. Malfoy, that I try my best to remember that the world, and the people in it, are living creatures that constantly change. Without that, we would lead dull lives indeed. 

Sincerely, 

Hermione Granger 

She addressed the envelope neatly and set it aside to take to work in the morning, when she could use a company owl. She didn't want the reply to wait for her own owl to return from Fiji. Setting her teacup in the sink for washing in the morning, she switched off the kitchen light and padded into her bathroom to brush and floss.

Hermione smiled to herself as she settled into bed and waved her wand to turn out the lights; she'd have a longer letter for her parents next week, and a heavier one. 

Poor Nicodemus.

A/N: There is, of course, far more to come. Including explanations for Hermione's cryptic musings. This is likely to be a longish fic again- not sure how it will compare to Soul Searching, but my Muse is delighted to have a meal-sized project again instead of just snacks. We'll see how it goes!


	2. The Dreaming

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The Kindest Curse

by Quillusion

Chapter 2

Hermione's heart was pounding in her ears, her breath puffing as loudly as the Hogwarts Express in her mind as she crouched behind the pedestal and vase on the lawn of an impressive Georgian house in Kent. The heavy scent of hyacinths drifted from the sweeping flower beds between her and the house, and she pinched her nose to keep from sneezing. Flames were just visible in the lower half of the front windows, licking tentatively at dry-rotted curtains before devouring them whole in an inaudible growl of hunger.

She hastily wiped her hand dry on her robes and tightened her grip on her wand, looking at the team leader, waiting for the signal. She wasn't an Auror, but her close knowledge of Voldemort and his tactics had made her a good choice to send as part of the team. 

_I'm not a field agent,_ she'd pointed out, eager to be part of the fight but reluctant to test herself when it wasn't Harry's life she was trying to save, but potentially her own. And yet they'd sent her, and she'd gone.

The team leader waved forward with a sharp, decisive gesture, and she ducked around her covering pedestal and dashed the short distance to the steps. Her efforts, combined with those of the two Aurors beside her, easily burned away the ward on the front door, and the Muggle lock- surprisingly engaged- released with a simple _Alohomora_. 

The flames had reached the foyer, and when the front door opened, the fresh onslaught of oxygen sent them roaring to smoke the chandelier hanging in the front hallway. Hermione squinted against the heat and fumes, scarcely able to believe that they were running _in_ instead of _out_. The two Aurors separated, each going to search rooms on opposite sides of the hallway, and Hermione headed straight back. She knew the rest of the team had entered from the back of the house.

A shout caught her attention, and she turned quickly to find its source. One of the Aurors was waving wildly at the front parlor from which the flames had initially come. Hermione made her way to the next door off the hallway, taking a quick peek around the corner before making her way in-

- and freezing at the sight of Lord Voldemort himself, in a towering rage. 

He was angrier than even Harry had been able to make him, and that was an accomplishment. The Dark Lord was sending bolts of fiery energy into everything in sight, which she supposed explained the fire. It was terrifying. She had no idea what had set him off, but it was immediately clear that their little raid had been horribly mistimed. She wondered if there was still time to abort the mission.

Then the first Auror- foolish, overeager Sutton- charged in, and Voldemort vaporized him with a curse Hermione could barely hear over the roar of the flames. 

Too late to back out now.

She moved around the corner when the Dark Lord lunged toward the front of the house, searching for the comrades he knew must have come with Sutton. Almost without thinking- this was the sort of situation for which training was supposed to prepare one, after all- she put the fire between Voldemort and herself, eyes scanning the room and its entrances for Death Eaters. It wasn't safe to assume Voldemort was alone.

Skirting the perimeter of the room, she crouched again behind a couch and got her bearings, sucking in deep lungs full of the clearer air near the floor. She quickly cast a spell to filter the worst of the smoke out of the air she breathed in, coughing a little as she sat up enough to look around her. She was at the back of the front parlor, and the smoke was getting thicker. She was now quite separated from everyone else, uncertain of the location of her teammates, unsure as well of the best way out of the stifling living room that was not far from becoming an inferno. The house would soon be losing its structural integrity, and she wouldn't have long to Apparate or run out of the building. She wasn't even certain she _could_ Apparate, given Voldemort's usual wards. She peered over the back of the couch to see what the Dark Lord was doing.Voldemort was shouting now, firing off curses and bolts of energy almost randomly, and she realized he was yelling a name, over and over. She couldn't quite make it out. Curses and bolts were raining down on Voldemort as well now, well-aimed and expertly cast, but his endurance was as inhuman as he was, and hexes which would have crippled Hermione or one of the Aurors merely dissipated on Voldemort. In response, he sent several jolts of lightning toward the front door, peering into the smoke to see what the result was.

That's when she realized his back was to her, and there did not appear to be any Death Eaters rushing to his defense. 

No time like the present. 

She stood and stepped out from behind the couch, her mouth dry with nerves but her wand arm steady.

Just then he turned, slowly, as if drawn against his will, his red slitlike eyes scanning the room through the swirling black smoke. 

She froze, unable to move, as trapped as if she'd been in a horrible dream. 

And then he spoke, his voice rasping like a basilisk's scales across the brittle bones of its victims.

_"Did you really think you could hide from me?"_

His words startled Hermione rather badly, and she knew she had to get out of his line of sight. She jerked back a step and crashed into something, losing her footing. She nearly lost her balance, but then someone gripped her shoulders in strong hands. It wasn't the couch she'd hit; someone had been standing behind her. When the powerful grip on her shoulders shifted a bit, she knew that whoever it was, she'd nearly knocked them over, too. She could feel that one of those hands was palming a wand with the thumb and index finger, and the panic left her. One of the Aurors. 

She turned quickly around, wondering if the Auror had a plan, and found herself staring with shock up into the cold grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy.

Everything moved in slow motion in that second. Hermione's eyes widened, and she watched in disbelief as the elder Malfoy's face registered surprise, calculation, and then- to her eternal confusion- relief. 

"Granger," he murmured, releasing her shoulders, and she barely heard it over the fire, aware even as she did it of the absurdity of nodding back in greeting. How like a pureblood to maintain the social niceties even in a crisis. Especially when that blood was at least in part French.

_"Lucius Malfoy!" _Voldemort's voice cracked like thunder, and Malfoy's gaze snapped to something over her shoulder. She spun around again, and there, not ten feet away, was the Dark Lord. His wand was raised, and his expression was twisted into a parody of rage and glee. Hermione stepped quickly to one side, not wishing to be between Voldemort's wand and anyone whose name he'd just said with such acid hatred.

"I believe it's time to pay the piper, Lucius," hissed Voldemort. Hermione and Lucius both retreated a step as the dark wizard pressed forward, and she suddenly found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with one of the wizarding world's most notorious villains, the two of them facing the greatest villain of the lot. Most surprising of all, it was clear from Voldemort's words that she and Lucius Malfoy were suddenly, unexpectedly, and inexplicably on the same side of this little conflict- however temporarily.

With the odd sort of attention to detail so common in tense moments, her mind absorbed the facts of the matter rapidly. Malfoy was smudged with soot, and his breathing was coming a bit fast; she could feel the quick movements of his chest where their shoulders pressed together. She realized, then, that he'd been the one firing the hexes at Voldemort, not the Aurors. She didn't even know if any of them were still alive; for all she knew, she was trapped alone with Voldemort and his second in command. But Lucius's hexes had been powerful ones, cast with accuracy and rapidity; after what she'd seen him throw at Harry, and at her, she would not have expected less. And they had been aimed at the Dark Lord rather than her. She swallowed, took a halting breath of smoky air, and realized that Lucius was speaking- and not to Voldemort.

His voice was low, his words not so much heard as felt through their physical contact.

"Cast _Exiliem_ with me," he breathed.

She stiffened.

"Do it," he murmured, his tone skating the razor-fine line between supplication and command. "I can deliver this prize to you, but not now. No one can stop him right now. Either we take this chance, or we die where we stand." 

Hermione could sense the vibrating urgency in his words, could taste the dry mouth of his anger and desperation, and she knew that Lucius Malfoy was afraid.

She also knew that he was right. Whether he would help them or not in the future was irrelevant. Survival was all that mattered. 

One small nod was all she gave. 

They cast simultaneously, the contact of their bodies giving them the timing with their breathing. Hermione put everything she had into the spell, her voice rising with Lucius's in a sharp command of magic.

_"Exiliem!"_

It was enough to overcome Voldemort's resistance. He vanished with a howl of rage, exiled from his own home- and through his own wards- to Circe only knew where, there to regroup and await the final confrontation with the forces that stood against him. 

As the smoke billowed away from them in the wind of Voldemort's departure, Lucius Malfoy stepped away from Hermione. He turned to look at her, his lip curled in a satisfied smile. He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her in inquiry, and she suddenly knew with dreadful certainty that every one of the Aurors who had come with her had died at this man's hands. When he raised his wand again, she felt herself immobilized, trapped without a single word, helpless to defend herself against whatever spell he might cast. She struggled, unable to tear her gaze from the icy grey eyes that studied her. He took a step toward her, then another. Then another.

And in the darkness of the small hours of the night, Hermione Granger sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat from a nightmare she hadn't had in almost ten years.

TBC


	3. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

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The Kindest Curse

by Quillusion

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Chapter 3

Diagon Alley was moderately crowded with early weekend shoppers when Hermione arrived at The Leaky Cauldron on Friday afternoon. She had come a few minutes early to allow time for browsing the markdown shelves at Flourish and Blotts, but something made her pause as she stood in the brick archway behind the pub, staring out into the busy street beyond. Turning around, she walked back into the dark, cozy interior of the pub, up to the bar, and purchased a butterbeer. She sat at the bar for a few minutes, sipping it; one never knew what sort of fortification might be needful when on the way to meet Lucius Malfoy, and she rather thought something would be better than nothing. Especially after the nightmares she'd been having.

Malfoy was not in front of the store when she arrived- granted, she was still fifteen minutes early- so Hermione stepped inside to get out of the cold, throwing back the hood of her cloak and sighing with relief at the warmth of the store's interior. She quickly found a rack of newly reduced books a few aisles removed from both the clerk's counter and the front door of the shop, and settled to browse while she waited. 

She leafed through several of the volumes idly, taking comfort in the familiar smell of paper and leather, the various feel of gilded page-edges and soft, shaggy cut paper ends beneath her fingers. She only seriously warmed to her perusal when she found a reference on lock-hexes and their local variants. It was a good book, if old, and she decided to purchase it while she waited. She set the book carefully on top of its fellows while she dug for her coin purse, only to see it fall to the floor a moment later when a harried store employee shoved the contents of the entire stack to one side to make room for a new armload of books.

Hermione sighed. It had been that sort of day. She leaned down to retrieve the book from the floor, but it wasn't there. It must have slid across the carpet and under the table behind her.

But a quick check beneath the table showed only worn carpet. The book was nowhere in sight. Then another customer passed on the other side of the table, a cloak's hem sweeping into view and blocking most of the light. When the cloak did not continue past the table, she stood up again.

"Pardon me, sir," she began, and then stopped.

Lucius Malfoy was standing on the other side of the table, his cool grey gaze meeting hers with calm amusement. His cloak was sparkled with snowflakes, and he was holding her book in his left hand. 

"Miss Granger," he said cordially, studying her for the slightest fraction of a second before holding her book out to her. "I believe this is yours."

_Accio, you idiot girl,_ she thought to herself fleetingly, hearing an echo of Ron's voice from nearly two decades past: _Are you, or are you not, a witch?_ Sometimes she forgot that even simple things could be made easier with a wand.

"Not at present, but it will be shortly, Mr. Malfoy," she replied smoothly, knowing from long years' experience- and more than a little practice- that her calm tone would give away none of the ambivalence she felt about seeing this man again. Stepping easily around the table, she took the book from him with her left hand, then held her right out in greeting. "It has been a long time," she said, feeling the weight of the understatement lie heavily on her tongue.

To her surprise, rather than shaking her hand, he saluted it in the old-fashioned manner that had always seemed so proper and chivalrous in theory- and which had a decidedly more intimate air than a handshake in practice. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, although his lips did not actually touch her hand; he was not the sort to do anything like this incorrectly. Given the inclement weather of December, the sensation was pleasant, even if it did send a shiver skimming down her spine that owed nothing to the temperature.

"Indeed," Malfoy replied, a hint of irony in his cultured voice. "A _very_ long time." The briefest tightening around his eyes suggested that perhaps he was recalling, as she had, that their last conversation had consisted almost entirely of a hex hurled at Lord Voldemort in the burning wreckage of the Dark Lord's home. Malfoy was just as soft-spoken as she remembered, the command in his voice springing not from the volume of the order, but from the compelling force of the will behind it. 

She gestured to the shop's interior with the book in her hand. "Did you need anything from Flourish and Blott's, Mr. Malfoy? I was just about to make a purchase."

He inclined his head. "They are holding a book for me." Moving toward the counter, he drew out a small leather bag and caught the attention of the clerks. 

A smiling young woman came to help Hermione, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Lucius as he spoke to the second clerk in a low voice. Hermione paid for her book and then studied Lucius as he leaned against the counter. 

He hadn't changed much, at least physically, with the passage of eight years; if anything, he looked better. Although that might have been nothing more than the absence of his formerly habitual sneer. He still had the same face, the same physique, and- part of her was secretly relieved to see it- the same luxuriantly long silver-blond hair, currently tied in a neat queue at the nape of his neck. She chuckled inwardly; as frightening and loathsome a figure as he had been to her in her school years, she had always envied him- and Draco- that beautiful spill of moonlight hair. She would have been sad to find he'd cut it all off, no matter the reason. 

The clerk had gone into the storeroom for a moment after speaking to Lucius, and now he returned with a small parcel wrapped tidily in green paper. Malfoy paid the clerk, thanked him, collected his book, and turned to meet Hermione's gaze.

"Hungry, Miss Granger?" 

She smiled. "Intellectually and gastronomically," she replied, and went ahead of him toward the door when he gestured for her to do so. Something about having a moment to study him without his direct observation had settled her nerves and let her shake off the unbalancing effect of his sudden appearance. That was twice he'd done that to her, and this time had definitely brought back memories of the first time. And the recent resurgence of her recurring nightmares was not helping matters. 

When they were standing in the foyer of the bookshop, Hermione paused to put her gloves back on and pull up the hood of her cloak. With a sudden jolt of memory, she realized that they were now standing in the very spot where they had first met, all those years ago when Lucius and Arthur had very nearly gotten into a fight in front of their children. She'd loathed him then with the ignorant confidence of a child; now she felt toward him an adult's fear and uncertainty, an ambivalence born in the discrepancy between word and deed, between nightmare and memory. 

Whatever else had changed with the years, he certainly seemed to have decided to accord Hermione the respect due her as a powerful witch. He was waiting for her with a patience she would not have expected from him, even though she was standing still with her gloves half-on and her expression as vacant as Ron's had been, that long-ago day when they had first met. She shook her head and pulled her hood up, not looking at him, not admitting she was afraid she'd see a mocking expression on his face at the recollection of the naive girl she'd been that day.

They stepped out into Diagon Alley, and Hermione noticed that it was snowing again. She turned to look at Lucius, for she did not know where they would be eating.

"This way," he said cordially, gesturing down the street. "I've reserved a table at Berley's." When he offered her his arm for support- for the street was slick- she hesitated only the merest fraction of a second before taking it. 

They moved carefully through the snow, and Lucius paused once to look up into the sky. "This is going to stick," he commented; already the sidewalk was thick with snow, and it had only been snowing in earnest for half an hour. Hermione glanced up as well, and nodded. 

"Probably. It would be nice to have a white Christmas." 

A soft laugh surprised her, and she looked over at him to find him brushing snowflakes from his lashes. "Ticklish," he said deprecatingly by way of explanation, and she laughed too, then. Whoever would have thought a Death Eater- former or otherwise- would be prone to something as innocent as ticklishness? 

She could have reminded him that Impervius would keep the snowflakes off of his face, but she decided that she liked him laughing and ticklish. It was unexpected, and that was refreshing. Besides- he might remind her that Accio was often used to retrieve lost items. She still felt a bit silly at having been caught rummaging on her hands and knees for a dropped book. 

The restaurant lay just ahead, golden pools of light falling from its front windows onto the accumulating snow on the sidewalk. Lucius held the door for her, and once she'd shaken the snow from her cloak in the front hall, one of the restaurant's staff took it from her to hang it in the cloak room. He took Lucius's as well, and the maitre d' smiled at them as he led them to a small table in a cozy alcove beside a fountain ringed with palm trees. It was quiet, and private, and Hermione knew that Lucius must dine here often to have his wishes so well known and heeded. 

They pursued small talk until the wine had been poured and their orders taken. Lucius enquired about Harry and Ron; while he knew they were playing Quidditch for England, he didn't know what they had made of themselves otherwise, and so she told him about Harry's son and Ron's daughter. She also mentioned their spouses, for neither of them had married classmates from Hogwarts; Harry's wife Deirdre was Irish, and Ron's wife Cassandra had gone to Salem Academy in the United States after living her childhood two years at a time in six states. As she talked, Hermione noted with surprise that Malfoy genuinely seemed interested in what she had to say.

"I'm surprised you're interested in what happened to the Boy Who Lived and his best friends," she remarked as the waiter brought their salads. "I don't presume to know what the last decade has been like for you, but given what I read in the papers back then, I suppose I had expected you to find Harry and Ron- and myself- either an unpleasant reminder of the past, or a persistent irritation to you."

He raised an eyebrow at her directness, but his smile was not forced. "As you said in your letter, Miss Granger- the world, and all the people in it, are living things that constantly change. I imagine it will surprise you to hear that I have followed your career over the years." 

Her expression said as much, and he went on. "You piqued my interest, you see- and I can hardly label you as a... er... 'persistent irritation' when you saved my life." His expression sobered a bit. "There were very few witches or wizards in Britain- or anywhere else- who could have done what we did that night at the Dark Lord's manor." 

It was Hermione's turn to raise an eyebrow. He mentioned it so easily, and yet she'd been dancing around the issue in her mind all night. All week, if she was honest with herself. She'd never talked to anyone about everything that had happened that night, nor had she said any more about it than had been required for the debriefing. She found herself suddenly wondering what he remembered about it, and if it was much different from what she recalled. She was vaguely tempted to ask him; he was, after all, the only other person who could really understand anything she had to say about it- even if it was odd to hear Lucius Malfoy include her in his concept of a 'we'. 

"Meaning?" she prompted. 

"Meaning it would normally have taken three or four people at least to exile the demon from his own home." He paused, considered her seriously. "If it had been anyone but you I ran into that night, I would be dead, and the war would have gone far differently. You possess considerable raw magical power, Miss Granger. I doubt you knew it that night- but something tells me you've discovered as much in the intervening years." 

Hermione wondered if he had considered that, had she not run into him, she too would most likely be dead; few, if any, of the Aurors who had gone on that mission had had the sort of power she had sensed in Lucius that night. Perhaps that was why she hadn't fully considered the matter herself; it was rather galling to owe her life to this man. She supposed he must have felt something similar, at least once upon a time. 

"I see no point in denying it," she said simply in reply. Honesty compelled her to add, "Although I think you underestimate your own contribution that night. Urgency is a powerful motivator." 

He snorted. "Urgency? Come now, Miss Granger." His voice was soft, his words plain. "It was desperation and you and I both know it." She could not quite suppress her incredulity, and she knew he would be able to read it in her face; she'd never heard Lucius Malfoy snort before, let alone follow it up with a self-deprecating remark. Despite herself, she felt her own curiosity piqued. He must want something very badly to strive so hard to put her at her ease. 

She turned the conversation into less unsettling waters by asking politely after Draco, and Lucius informed her in clipped tones that her classmate had moved to Austria for a five-year business venture with Fleur Delacoeur's family. He hadn't been home in over a year, and was busy enough that his correspondence was intermittent at best. 

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said, and Lucius shrugged.

"He has his own life to live," he replied, his gaze focused on his wineglass, his voice remote. She gracefully let the subject drop, wondering why it struck such a nerve with him. There was more there than met the eye, but she hardly had the right to pry further.

Their food arrived, and they ate in relative silence, enjoying the excellent cuisine. Hermione had not had risotto in ages, and the rich, subtle flavors melted on her tongue so delightfully that she found herself eating more slowly than usual, just to savor it. Lucius had some sort of complicated pork dish that involved Morel mushrooms, and he, too, was paying most of his attention to the meal. 

Dessert- or, more accurately, the wine that was served with dessert- prompted a discussion of the book Lucius had purchased, which was a manual on charms for vintners. It seemed that, in the last few years, Malfoy had found the remains of one of his forebears' vineyard on one of his French properties, and decided to rebuild it. He'd had some success, but was hoping to learn a bit more about grape vines before he took things any further. 

Hermione, a bit of an oenophile herself, was delighted to hear that the older grape varieties his ancestors had grown were still extant, albeit grown a bit wild; the wines from the Malfoy vineyards of the 1700s were revered among collectors, and she knew better than to think she'd ever taste them on her budget. Unlike Muggle wines, wizarding wines were spelled during fermentation to prevent the deterioration of their components, so even a white wine from 1860 retained its virtues. With such a lifespan, wines could continue to increase in value over the lives of several owners. The current price of a bottle of Chateau Malfoy Grand Cuvée 1699 would pay the operating costs of Hogwarts for over a year. 

When the coffee had at last arrived, Hermione sat back with a small groan. "Shouldn't have eaten the cheesecake," she said, and smiled. "But the wine was marvelous." 

Lucius nodded in agreement, pushing his own chair back a bit. "Overeating is not good as a trend- but every once in a while, it reminds you of why moderation is such a good idea." He smiled at her, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. Carefully raising her guard so as not to let him know she'd done so, she leaned forward on the table again.

"So." She smiled conspiratorially. What can have brought the head of one of Britain's most noble wizarding houses to invite a Muggleborn cursecracker to dinner?" 

Lucius smiled back, and this time there was a hint of his former steely determination in the expression. "Well might you ask." He reached into a pocket of his robes and drew out an old black book, its cover torn, its pages wrinkled with repeated wetting and drying. "I don't doubt you remember this."

Hermione stared at it in surprise for a moment. "Tom Riddle's diary," she said. 

"Yes," he confirmed, laying it down between them on the table, leaning forward so that his soft murmurs would reach her ears only. "One volume of several, in fact. Voldemort was always vain enough to want to preserve his thoughts for posterity." He studied the book for a moment, and Hermione considered his words. She'd never heard him say the Dark Lord's name before. 

"I have destroyed the six other volumes in the series, and this one no longer contains any residue from his personality. Mr. Potter saw to that quite effectively." He paused, and the subtle shifting of his jaw reminded her very sharply of the predatory creature he was beneath all the manners. "But there are others."

"Others?" she echoed, not liking the ominous sound of the word. 

"Oh, not diaries, you understand- but he secreted bits of himself here, there, wherever he could, as if stashing embers and coals from which he could rekindle the flame of his life at need. Much as he nearly did with this diary. I need not explain to you how dangerous these remnants are- nor how vital it is that they be found and destroyed."

"Why haven't you told the Ministry about this?" Hermione asked quietly, not wanting him to think she was accusing him of anything. He'd cooperated fully with the Ministry after the ill-fated raid attempt, after all- even if she didn't really know why.

His laugh was harsh. "I did tell them," he protested. "They didn't quite believe me." His tone was light but derisive, and she knew there was at least a little real bitterness beneath it. "I find it ironic that they accepted without question every bit of good news I gave them, and doubted the bad news I thought they would most expect to hear from me." He shrugged fatalistically, sipping once more from his wineglass as Hermione stared at him in dismay.

Lucius smiled at her consternation. "Oh, they made a brief search, to be sure- but even with the information I had, they wouldn't have known which were the dangerous items among the things they searched, and they wouldn't let me near enough to any of it to be of any use myself. When they didn't find anything obvious, they told me that would be an end to the matter." He studied the remnants of the wine in his glass, then set it back on the table. 

"I had no intention of mooning after them like a paranoid lunatic, so I let them think I was content to leave the decisions to them. I was fortunate enough to come to an agreement with the Ministry that left me my freedom, and once things had settled down after the war I set out to deal with the matter myself. It has taken me nearly all of the past decade, but I have now destroyed thirty-one items which had contained residual traces of Voldemort's personality and life force." 

"And how many remain?" asked Hermione slowly.

Lucius smiled, and there was just a hint of satisfaction in the curve of his mouth. 

"One. I have devised a tracking spell that will tell me if any trace of Voldemort remains in this world, and it indicates that there is only one item left to be destroyed."

"What exactly is it?" 

He shook his head. "I can't tell you that here." 

She blinked. "They why did you ask me to meet you here?"

"Because I needed to know if you would even agree to hear me out. Given my... given the past, I didn't think you would feel comfortable coming to my home." His left eyebrow arched meaningfully, and she knew he hadn't needed to guess on that point. 

"What _can_ you tell me, then?" she asked simply.

"The object in question is difficult to reach, for reasons which will become clear to you. It is quite heavily guarded by Muggle security, which makes studying the thing challenging- but even beyond that, it is protected with powerful wards. Old wards. None of the other items I have destroyed were even half so well protected, which makes me think that this particular one has more of him in it than any of the others; given the strength of the protective spells, perhaps more than all the others combined." He paused, his expression unreadable. "I think you see my point." 

Hermione considered this, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Yes," she said, but he could hear the unspoken 'but' in her tone.

He wisely remained silent. 

She raised her eyes to his again, cool confidence firmly in place. "I must know what this object is," she said. 

He glanced about them, his expression clearly indicating his unwillingness.

"I assume you wish my help in breaking the wards and enchantments upon this object?" she asked. 

"Yes."

"I cannot agree to help you, Mr. Malfoy, until I know the full extent of the job you wish me to do," she said simply. "If I can form a professional opinion from what you've already said, the inherent power of the object itself could potentially complicate matters, above and beyond any Muggle security issues. If we are dealing with a curse laid by Voldemort, this is going to be a difficult task at best; if the object itself has any power, it will be exponentially difficult. Perhaps beyond my skills." 

Lucius smiled grimly. "Oh, the curse was at least in part laid by Voldemort," he said softly. "And as for inherent power... "

He did not continue, and Hermione leaned forward a bit more, the first faint stirrings of unease forming in the back of her mind. Lucius Malfoy was not a man easily unsettled.

"Mr. Malfoy... tell me. What is it that you have to destroy?" 

He rose from his seat, came to stand beside her. He paused for a moment, as if making certain of his choice, and then leaned down to put his lips right beside her ear.

She felt the warmth of his breath on her skin again, smelled the faint, rich spice of him, and when he spoke, his voice was a soft murmur barely above a whisper. 

"The Hope Diamond."

One minute passed in complete silence. 

Inherent power, indeed. No wonder Malfoy was so worried.

When at last she could move, Hermione looked up at Lucius, the old fears twisting into her bloodstream like the first tendrils of smoke from a blossoming fire. The thought of Voldemort reborn from such a potent talisman formed a cold, heavy lump of dread in her stomach. _If any project you've ever been handed was worth doing, this is it,_ she thought.

"We've got our work cut out for us," she observed mildly.

Lucius turned to catch the waiter's eye. "Check, please!"


	4. Ice

****

The Kindest Curse

By Quillusion

Author's Note: No matter how often I look, they're still not mine. Disclaimer still applies. Incidentally, in case anyone might have missed this, the Hope Diamond is not mine either. (The former makes me sigh with regret- the latter, with relief.) 

For those of you who have asked about the Hope Diamond and what, exactly, it is: read on, MacDuff. Our heroine will expound, as she always does. All of the obviously Muggle facts I write about the Hope Diamond in this story are true, although some of them are the best guesses of experts rather than documented fact. The wizarding history of the diamond, however, may or may not be true- depending on whether or not you think you can trust Lucius Malfoy. 

I can't speak for any of you, dear readers... but I still haven't made up my mind on that point. 

Chapter 4

Hermione had never had much occasion to indulge in tandem Apparation, and she was careful not to make any mistakes as she let Lucius handle the direction of the spell she cast on herself. It wouldn't do to splinch in front of Lucius Malfoy, no matter how disused the skill she was demonstrating. 

The mellow light of the restaurant faded from the pavement before them, and with the usual hitch of movement and a loud pop, they left Diagon Alley and materialized in a snowy courtyard. A house built from softly weathered grey stone stretched two wings around them, nicely blocking the cold wind but coalescing the chill, heavy night air into drifts nearly as thick as the snow that piled in the corners. It was very dark out, despite the faint reflected light from the snowdrifts and the still-falling snow, and the deep hush of peace around them told Hermione that they were far out in the country. Which country, she wasn't sure.

"Ah," said Lucius in a satisfied tone, bringing his hand close to his face to inspect a few of the thick, heavy flakes that had collected on his sleeve. "Good. Wet snow, and plenty of it. We need the snowmelt- the fields have been dry since autumn." He turned and cast a glance out into the soft silent twilight, and then gestured toward the door of the house. "But I'd rather not stand in the middle of it if I can help it. Shall we?" 

The front door was opened as they mounted the steps, and Hermione stepped gratefully into the warm light of the foyer. 

"Welcome home, Master," said the squeaky voice of a house elf, and Hermione looked down to see a tiny creature with gigantic brown eyes looking up at Malfoy. The house elf was dressed in a neat tea towel, apparently supplemented for the winter with a warm-looking cloak made out of a flannel pillowcase. 

"Thank you, Stidge," said Lucius calmly. "Is there a fire in the drawing room? Miss Granger is soaked through."

"Yes, Master," replied Stidge. "If miss would let me take her cloak?"

Hermione acquiesced, grateful that SPEW was thirteen years in its grave. It still embarrassed her to remember her ignorant assumption that the house elves did not know their own minds in accepting what she saw as enslavement. 

The arrogance of her opinions offended her now as much as it had ever offended any of the Hogwarts house elves, Dobby notwithstanding, of course- but there were outliers in every crowd. She only hoped Malfoy had not heard of the matter through his son, although she had to acknowledge that this was a slim hope at best. At least she wouldn't be embarrassing herself by launching into an impassioned speech in front of Lucius Malfoy, although she still felt his treatment of Dobby had been horrific. 

She paused a moment, fondly remembering the little house elf who just last fall had been promoted to the position of Hogwarts Steward Elf. He'd been so grateful to Dumbledore for the promotion that he'd charmed the Headmaster's chair to give him a giant hug at dinner. She had heard through the grapevine that McGonagall and Snape had had to destroy the chair to get it to let Albus breathe, and Madam Pomfrey had had to repair six of Dumbledore's ribs. The Headmaster had laughed it off as a good joke, but Dobby had apparently been peremptorily summoned to the dungeons shortly after dinner. 

Now that she considered the matter, given how strangely Dobby showed affection for his friends, perhaps she ought to reserve final judgment on Lucius Malfoy's behavior toward the house elf until she heard his side of things. Not that she would ever ask.

Stidge took Hermione's wet cloak along with her master's and vanished, and Hermione followed Lucius along the hall toward the drawing room. The floors were granite flagstones so old that any polish they might once have held had softened to a dull sheen under centuries of footsteps. They seemed more apropos to a country kitchen than a foyer, but they were magically warmed, which kept the hallway comfortable. 

Hermione was glad to see that the Malfoy family did not share the Black family's tradition of hanging shrieking portraits in the entryway. There were several tapestries on the walls, old and faded but unquestionably of good work; but aside from these, the beautifully finished wood paneled walls were bare, with no portraits in sight. The only items of furniture were a wide, low bench beside the door and a round table standing on a small area rug in the middle of the foyer; a few items from the day's post lay there awaiting the attention of the house's residents. Lucius scooped these off the table and glanced through them briefly, put one back on the table for Stidge to deal with, and kept the rest in his hand as he turned back to Hermione.

"Welcome to Vinewood," he said cordially. "This is my family's country home in Kent; my great-grandmother grew up here. I've made it my principal residence." 

That surprised her a little. "I thought you lived at the Malfoy family seat," she said. 

He paused, and when he answered her at last, his reply was brief and rather pointed. 

"Malfoy Manor has been closed for nine years."

And he had lived here, in this house whose appearance so belied his love of the finer things, ever since? That was difficult to credit.

She learned not to take things at face value a moment later. Malfoy politely opened the doors to the drawing room for her, and Hermione was treated to the warmth of a roaring fire in a hearth taller than she. She crossed the room to stand before it and stretch her hands out to the flames; it felt lovely after the chill of snowfall and Apparation. She studied her surroundings with a casual but efficient glance; she'd made a career of noticing details, and it took little effort for her to assimilate what she saw.

The drawing room was spacious, but not cavernous, and it was furnished with comfortable-looking furniture of fairly recent vintage. The walls were papered in a subtle pattern, the polished hardwood floor blanketed with an Axminster carpet; all of these underscored the subtle and refined tastes of the man who had directed their purchase. She rather thought that, in daylight, the far wall of French doors would very likely showcase a terrace with a beautiful view beyond. The number of books, articles, and letters on the desk before the window suggested that this was where Lucius spent the bulk of his time when at home. The battered condition of the ottoman in front of the equally worn leather chair before the fireplace confirmed it. The opposite chair gleamed with the dull luminescence of new leather.

"Tea?" Lucius offered as he dropped the mail on his desk and crossed the room to a credenza standing against one wall. An ornate samovar and several gorgeously fashioned crystal decanters stood atop the gleaming wood surface. He paused, one eyebrow arched with mild amusement. "Or something stronger, perhaps?" The right side of his mouth pulled upward in the faintest suggestion of a smile.

Hermione laughed. "For the conversation I think we're about to have, I expect something stronger would be wise. Do you have Stoli?"

He chuckled. Opening the center French door a bit, he reached outside and brought in a frosty, snow-crusted bottle of Polmos Królewska. "Will this do?" he asked mildly, knocking the snow off against the doorframe with a few practiced movements.

She nodded. "Quite nicely," she said. 

Closing the door, he plucked two glasses from the sparkling collection on the credenza and brought them to the pair of wing chairs by the fire. He set the glasses down and gestured for her to sit. 

Lucius poured the vodka and handed her one glass, then sat back in his chair and raised the other in a silent toast before taking a sip. He sighed tiredly, and Hermione noticed for the first time that he did, indeed, look tired. It was subtle- a little shadow around the eyes, a faint tightness in the mouth- but it was there. 

Hermione took a sip of the bitingly cold vodka. It was good, smooth and strong, and she nodded appreciatively as the subtle flavor blossomed on her palate. 

"You'll forgive my saying it," she said, "but I didn't think you'd go for anything other than Russian vodka. It seems too plebian for your tastes."

That won her a long look and a shrug. 

"I don't suppose you really know me well enough to form an educated opinion on the subject of my tastes," he said neutrally in reply. "But then, I also don't think I'd care to hear a recitation of your theories. I didn't ask you here tonight to assassinate my character." 

_No,_ she thought wryly. _You asked me here to help you kill something else that's also already dead._ But she kept the thought to herself. 

"You are absolutely correct, Mr. Malfoy. My apologies. I-"

He grimaced. 

"Wait," he said, sitting up in his chair and holding up a hand to halt her speech. "I must insist that you stop calling me that." He set his glass aside and leaned forward just a little, the cool grey gaze glittering with determination as it found and held hers. 

"The 'Mr. Malfoy' who has existed in your mind for the last seventeen years exists nowhere else on this earth," he said simply. "Where I am concerned, you can know only what others have told you; consequently, your 'Mr. Malfoy' is a chimaera born of gossip, rumor, and the occasional odd bit of fact to lend it the air of truth. 

"I do not say your friends and teachers lied to you about me," he said quickly when she opened her mouth to protest. "They have doubtless told you what they thought was true. But even Albus Dumbledore's information can be inaccurate- and his sources were not always neutral. I cannot be half as evil as you have likely been told that I am- and no more than three quarters as clever." He smiled a little, but fatigue washed the mirth out of the expression.

"When you were a child, you had little option but to accept what you were told by those you trusted. But you have long since left childhood behind, and the time for stories is past." He paused for a sip of vodka. When he spoke again, his tone was low. 

"Despite what the media has reported in the last decade, it has been a very long time indeed since anyone offered me a true fresh start. We both deserve better than to be forced to build on the ruins of ages past... so I would be very grateful indeed if you would call me Lucius, and just let 'Mr. Malfoy' die. " 

He was watching her, his expression sober, and she realized that she'd never heard him sound sincere before. She wondered if this was how it sounded. _Stop being petty,_ she told herself. _He's been honest with you so far._

But he had a very valid point. She had acknowledged the same thing in her flat the night she'd received his letter; she had never considered him outside of the things she was told by others. He was no innocent- but neither was he likely to be as black as legend had painted him. Somewhere in between lay the truth, and he was right; they both deserved to know the truth for what it was. 

Besides which, there were practical considerations. If she was really going to accept the commission he was offering, then she'd have to decide if she could trust him or not. Given the past, 'not' was winning at the moment- but his point remained. She could not claim to know him from a handful of encounters, even if they all cast him in an unflattering light; certainly she had never met him in circumstances that could be called anything other than adversarial. He would have a skeptical audience, but she would at least give him that audience. 

And lastly, she admitted to herself, she couldn't quite make herself forget the dreadful first, second, third, and fourth impressions she had made upon Harry and Ron. If she could go from 'insufferable' to 'inseparable', then perhaps Malfoy might at least manage 'tolerable'. 

Even if he had set off her old nightmares again. 

Hermione looked up into clear grey eyes that reminded her so much of Draco. She pushed the thought of his son aside; whatever her differences with the younger Malfoy, they had little- if anything- to do with the matter at hand. 

"Very well, Lucius," she said at last. "And perhaps you might find it in you to call me Hermione. Hearing you call me 'Miss Granger' makes me feel as though I've run into you and Draco on a Hogsmeade weekend, and we're both due back at Hogwarts by Sunday night." Her amused tone took the mild sting out of the words. 

Lucius's mouth thinned the faintest fraction at her remark, but he nodded graciously. "Of course, Hermione. I see your point." He sat back in his chair again and thought for a moment.

"Now then," he said, "on to the business at hand." He fiddled for a moment with one cufflink, gathering his thoughts before he spoke.

"I think it would be best if I simply started at the beginning, rather than in the middle, where I came into the matter. Tell me, Hermione- what do you know of the Hope Diamond?" 

It was Hermione's turn to sit back and think for a moment. "I saw it once, at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. My parents took me there the summer before I started at Hogwarts. I read a little bit about it before we went, but it was a long time ago. I'm not sure how much I remember."

"What?" Lucius said, one eyebrow arched in feigned shock. "The famous Hermione Granger, not remember something she read in a book? Come, now, you have a reputation to uphold!"

She shot him a smirk. "You're not the only one whose legend casts a long and deep shadow, " she said, but she cupped her chin in her palm and thought hard. She'd be damned if she had to admit to Lucius Malfoy in her own turn that she was not every bit as brilliant as rumor would have her. 

"The diamond originally came from India. At least, they think it did- there are gaps in the stone's history." She turned her glass between her palms as she thought, feeling the icy-vodka-induced frost melt against her skin. "It was an enormous blue diamond that was purchased by a French diamond merchant, who brought it back to France and sold it to the Crown. King Louis XIV, I think." She looked at Lucius, and he nodded confirmation.

"The French king had the jewel set and it became part of the French crown jewels, known as the French Blue. During the French Revolution the crown jewels were taken from the royal family, and then the French Blue went missing. Several years later a large blue diamond, smaller than the French Blue but characteristic enough that it was thought to be the same stone only recut, appeared in Britain. It was purchased by the Prince Regent, who- to no one's surprise- was eventually forced to sell it to pay off debts." She paused, thinking again. 

"Eventually the diamond was purchased by a man named Henry Philip Hope, whose name became permanently associated with the stone itself. From him it passed to several other people in his family and then on, eventually being bought by Pierre Cartier, who changed the setting of the stone in order to charm an American couple named McLean into buying it. When Evalyn McLean died many years later, the diamond was eventually bought by another American jeweler, Harry Winston, who took it on a tour of the world for exhibition and then eventually donated it to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. I am not entirely certain about this, but it might be the largest blue diamond in the world." She halted, for here was the relevant issue.

"It's also supposed to be cursed," she said slowly. "I'm not sure exactly what to make of that- the Muggle definition of 'cursed' is so imprecise. There were several deaths, accidents, assassinations, and other misfortunes associated with ownership of the stone, but it's hard to say how much of that is just the normal misfortunes of life. Most objects that Muggles tend to think are cursed don't even have a curse on them; many of these 'cursed' objects are items that are expensive and rare enough to make them unattainable except by people whose greater resources open them up to opportunities for greater misfortune. If Voldemort has cast some sort of spell on the Hope Diamond, it may still have nothing to do with the legends surrounding the stone." She shook her head a little. "Sorry- I talk to myself when I'm thinking."

Lucius chuckled. "Most smart people do," he observed smoothly. "It's the only way to be sure you'll get an intelligent response."

She smiled back, and thought a bit more. "I can't remember anything else. What else should I know?"

He considered. "You know a great deal already," he said. "I must apologize for doubting your memory; your reputation is clearly well-deserved. The Hope Diamond has been in the possession of the Smithsonian since 1959, and has left the Smithsonian on only four occasions in all that time. And yet, at some point in the last eighty years, Voldemort gained access to the stone and imparted some of his life force into it." He sat up, then got to his feet.

"I may not know the full details of _how_, but I think I know _when_ he did it." He went to his desk, drew his wand, and cast a softly-uttered spell that unlocked the bottom-most drawer. From this he removed an old, slightly-yellowed newspaper.

"This is an issue of the Daily Prophet from shortly after the war with Grindelwald. My father saved every issue he got, and I am belatedly grateful for his packrat habits. Here is the Prophet from Monday, May 13, 1946; look at the photograph on the society page."

Hermione took the paper from him and carefully turned its age-yellowed leaves to find the society page. She saw Lucius's father's name- Decius Malfoy- in bold type at the top of a column, but skimmed over the article without noting what it was about. At the bottom of the page, she saw a photograph. 

It was a wedding photograph. Back in the 1940s, wizarding photographs had been no more able to move than Muggle ones; this was a still black and white image. The bride was swathed in an elegant sweep of lace, her bouquet cascading nearly to the floor, her eyelashes demurely lowered against porcelain cheeks. The groom standing beside her looked as though he were exerting every bit of effort to seem taller than her; the best man beside him, however, had an aloof air, an insouciant casualness to his stance, one hand in his trouser pocket. He was looking at the bride with a rather smug expression on his face. 

That young man, she realized suddenly, was Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"It's Riddle," she said aloud. 

"Yes," he confirmed, bracing one forearm on the back of her wing chair to study the photo a minute more. "Notice anything else?"

It took her only five seconds to notice the hazy detail of the bride's neck. There, in the shadowed space beneath her dimpled chin, rested a dark oval suspended from a string of brilliant white stones.

The Hope Diamond.

Hermione's jaw dropped a little, and Lucius nodded with satisfaction.

"That's his best friend Markus getting married," he said, gesturing toward Voldemort's younger incarnation. "The boy was pureblooded, but he married a Muggle business tycoon's daughter." Malfoy laughed. "I don't imagine that sat well with Tom, even given the immense fortune Markus made with the marriage. Still, at that age he wasn't likely to object as... violently as he might have when I knew him. If he thought his friend was polluting his bloodline, he said little about it. Of course, back then he was himself still using his Muggle father's surname, and he might not yet have developed the full-blown hatred of Muggleborns that would later drive him." 

Hermione noted with interest that Malfoy said the word 'Muggleborn' naturally and with no hint of scorn or distaste. But he was not finished relating the details of the matter to her.

"Markus was from a family rather like the Weasleys, if you take my meaning; pureblooded, but poor. From his standpoint the match was a favorable one, if one could overlook the matter of the bride's lack of breeding. Clearly his family and friends found it easy- or at least convenient- to do so. 

"Tom was best man at the wedding, as you see. The bride's mother was a very close friend of Mrs. McLean, the woman who owned the Hope Diamond. She loaned the diamond to the bride as her 'something blue', as the Muggle tradition goes." He cocked a derisive eyebrow at the notion. "I imagine it was the diamond, and not the bride, who had Tom's attention when this photo was taken." 

He came to stand behind Hermione then, leaning over just a little to study the image on the page. One lock of silver-blond hair fell over his shoulder, and she wistfully stamped down the envy that caught her unguarded. His hair, when messy, still looked fantastic; hers, on the other hand, invited birds to make their permanent home in it. It just wasn't fair.

"The groom died several years after the wedding," Lucius went on, interrupting her thoughts. "They were still childless at the time. Their home burned to the ground. It was declared an accidental fire started by embers from a fireplace, but I can't help wondering if Voldemort was behind it, and whether he might have intended to kill the wife instead of his friend." He paused. "He does seem to have a talent for setting fire to houses." 

The dry comment made Hermione smile, though the remembered heat of flames and smoke made her shiver a little. "And you think Tom somehow got hold of the diamond at the time of this wedding?"

"I would imagine so," he said, straightening again and coming back to stand before the fire. "It would have been harder to get hold of the diamond for any length of time after 1947, when it was no longer a privately owned item but a display piece sent on tour, then put on show in a museum. There were two years between Evalyn McLean's death and Harry Winston's purchase of the stone; I suppose he could have managed something then, but it would have been more complicated. No, I think Tom Riddle had already made the decision when he saw the Hope Diamond on the bride's person at the wedding. It just made what he wanted to do that much easier."

Hermione handed the newspaper back to Lucius with a slight frown. 

"What, exactly, do you think he did to the stone?" she asked.

Lucius chuckled. "Ah, now there's another story I must take care not to start halfway through. Let's go back a bit." 

He settled back into his chair, neatly poured them each another glass of vodka.

"You already know the Muggle history of the stone- but there is a wizarding history to it as well, which is more difficult to trace because the facts are not a matter of public record, as ownership is." He raised his glass to her again, and took a sip. 

"The stone was, indeed, brought to France as you have said. And it was in the possession of the Royal Family for many years- until the Revolution swept them from power." His lip curled a bit at that, and Hermione tamped down her impulse to laugh. An insurrection of the lower classes would have that effect on an aristocrat like Malfoy. That thought gave her pause. He had French blood, after all; some of it might have been spilled in the Terror.

"A moment," she said by way of interruption. "Was your family at all involved in the events of that age?"

He snorted. "The French wizarding aristocracy had more weapons at its disposal than the Muggle aristos," he said, his tone surprisingly free of disdain. "Illusions and Muggle-repelling charms were really all that was required." He was not quite able to suppress a chuckle at some thought that crossed his mind, and he shook his head at her inquisitive glance. 

"Sorry, just a memory of childhood stories at Christmas. Apparently one of my mother's ancestors was so fond of illusions that she allowed herself to be 'guillotined' several times just for the fun of scaring the peasants by getting up and fetching her head afterward. She caused mass hysteria on several occasions, and on several others she helped Muggle aristocrats escape by taking their place and pretending to lose her head again. The sans culottes would put her in a coffin and she would simply Apparate home while they were noisily stacking the coffins up- that disguised the usual popping sound." He shook his head again. "She was a character." 

"So it seems," Hermione said, choosing not to point out that at least one of his ancestors had felt Muggles worth saving. He didn't seem to disagree with his ancestress; perhaps it was simply because the Muggles in question were aristocrats, of any flavor.

"At any rate, it would not surprise you to know that the King of France was as aware of the existence of wizards as the British monarch and Prime Minister are. Louis had a wizard on his council of advisors, and it was to this wizard that he appealed for help in safeguarding the monarchy. He was not as sanguine as Marie Antoinette, and he truly feared what the mob might do. 

"The wizard in question has left us his diaries, but given the secrecy surrounding witchcraft and wizardry in that era, we do not know his name. What is known is that he instructed Louis to choose a talisman that would not likely be destroyed by any mob. Louis chose the French Blue, of course. No one would destroy a diamond, if they could sell it instead, and unlike metals it could not be melted and remade into something else. He gave the stone to the wizard, who then set about putting a powerful enchantment on it.

"The intent of the spell was to turn the diamond into a chrysalis of sorts. Something of Louis's spirit would be refracted into the stone, and from it a knowledgeable wizard would be able to reconstruct the king, even if he were killed by the mob. It was almost a form of immortality, for the spell would hold the king suspended indefinitely, and once he was released it would be as though no time had passed." Lucius tipped his head back against the chair's cushion, lids half lowered. "That's a heady thought to any man of power, you must admit." 

Hermione nodded, intrigued by the tale. Her host went on with his narrative.

"The spell was ready, and all that remained was the addition of Louis's spirit. A time was set, and the wizard met with the king to perform the final ritual- but time was up. The revolutionaries came for Louis and his family before the wizard had finished the spell, and they took the king away by force. The wizard was able to conceal himself, but the stone had been in the King's hand, and so it too was taken away. It vanished before anyone had a chance to try to rescue it and finish what had been begun- and thus passed Louis XVI, King of France. All that remains of him is the tiny fragment of his spirit which might still reside in the Hope Diamond, sustained by archaic spells whose meaning and content are, I confess, beyond my knowledge."

Hermione realized that Lucius was holding out a small leather-bound book, crumbling with age, and she took it from him. It was a small diary, filled with a crabbed sort of handwriting which looked as though it had been done with a quill in desperate need of sharpening. "Whose diary is this?"

"The wizard's," Lucius answered. "Look at the marked page."

She turned to the page marked by a bit of faded blue ribbon. It was dated September 21, 1792. She read aloud, translating from French to English as she did so. 

_"The first spell is completed, having taken the better part of seventy hours to cast. The Blue is prepared for the Pentacle of incantations tonight, and I record here the details of the proceedings in the hope that a true Frenchman in ages hence might restore the monarchy so bitterly betrayed in this one. The Arx Occultus will preserve and keep him for the future glory of France, once his voice, hand, and blood are united in the stone. But the spells must be cast tonight or the seal will be set without him." _

Hermione frowned a little. "Do you happen to know what that means?" she asked. 

Lucius shook his head. "Not for certain, no. I have tended to assume that the first spell created the opportunity to hide the king's spirit in the stone, but the time was short in which the transfer could be done." 

"That's most likely it," she agreed thoughtfully. "Such spells as this one seems to be are inherently unstable until completed, and the potential for disaster is quite high. I've encountered talismans created with this theory before, some successful and some failed, although I've never seen one that had a preparatory phase that took seventy hours. Either this is an incredibly powerful spell, or he was a wizard with little power." She tapped her fingers against the diary's pages for a moment. 

"Given the ambitious nature of this spell, I am not inclined to believe him weak," she said at last. She ran her fingers over the inked lines in the diary, feeling for the spirit of the man who had written them, biting her lip a little. "Unless... unless the stone already had some sort of spell on it which he had to undo- and given the propensity of the ancients for using gemstones for spellcasting, that's not an idea we should cast aside just yet." She leafed through a few of the preceding pages thoughtfully, but there was no mention of any preparatory research or spells. 

"Does the diary say whether the spell was completed?" she asked.

"Read on," said Lucius. 

She had already read to the bottom of that page, and so she turned to the next one to continue. There was a scribbled-out line at the top of the page, and then the writing began again a third of the way down, much messier this time and with blots of ink where the dull quill had been pressed too hard. She read aloud again.

"_There has been an overthrow of all our plans- the King is taken, seized by guards before the completion of the Third Point. I cannot hope that anything of his spirit is retained in the Blue so early in the Pentacle. The revolutionaries now have the stone, for the King had it in his hand when they seized him. I was able to escape their notice, but I have no idea where they have taken Louis or if I can save him. Even if I can find him, there is little hope that there will still be time to complete the Pentacle, but I must try. I will hide this diary in the hopes that someone, someday, can find the Blue and cast the key for release and discover whether I have succeeded, or failed. I have sworn my life to Louis's service, and I will not desert him now. The Pentacle I have hidden in my wife Gilaea's diary, safe where I know no sane man- Muggle or wizard- would ever care to pry."_

Hermione's head shot up. "His wife's diary?" 

Lucius chuckled. "Even wizards of that age were not wise enough to have learned never to underestimate a woman," he remarked. "But to answer your unasked question- yes. I have acquired the diary. It was actually in the possession of one of my cousins, who apparently is descended directly from the lady in question. It was one of thirty or so volumes in an unopened chest in his attic. He gave it to me without so much as a second glance; one glance, I think, is more than enough for most people." He held out another slim volume, this one bound in pink linen with lace trim; the letter G was inscribed on the cover in a silvery script. Hermione accepted the diary from him with a wrinkled nose.

Lucius laughed at her response. "And there you prove the depth of the lady's wisdom," he said with satisfaction. "Open it." 

He was delighted to see that Hermione did nothing of the sort. Instead, she drew her wand and began to methodically examine the book, checking for hexes, locks, alarms, erasure-wards, and other things that might have injured her or damaged the book's contents had she opened it straightaway. 

It was just as well she checked. There were two spells holding the book shut; one of them was a simple lock, and the other would have blinded the unauthorized reader. Temporarily, of course, but it would still have been decidedly inconvenient. Neither of them took her more than eight seconds to disarm.

"And did you go blind when you opened this book the first time?" she asked blandly as she let the book fall open on her lap.

He smirked. "Of course not. I may not be the consummate professional you are, my dear, but I have more than a little experience in such matters. In point of fact, I removed eight other hexes before I opened the volume. The last two, as you see, are self-resetting."

Letting her raised eyebrow convey her displeasure at his omission, she turned her gaze back to the diary. The page before her was smooth and clean, covered in an elegant, spare hand that had been written with a neatly sharpened quill.

The lady's wit was no less sharp, she soon discovered. 

Gilaea had indeed been wife to the King of France's wizard; she called her husband 'Iz' when she referred to him by name, when she referred to him at all. They left one another largely alone, and that was all she had to say on the matter of her marriage. 

On the matter of the Revolution, however, she had much to say. A witch of some power in her own right, she seemed to have been a woman of sense and compassion, and she had exerted her influence where possible to help the innocent flee to safer lands. There were some harrowing tales in the diary, all recounted with skill in the lady's excellent French. Nowhere did she find silly recollections of what she had worn, or eaten, or thought of another woman's dress. Weather was mentioned only when it touched upon one of the escapes.

Hermione read for a long while in silence, her interest in the diary's contents outweighing her mild irritation with Lucius for not mentioning the remaining wards on its cover. She read quickly but without skimming, and when she had finished she had seen no sign of a pentacle or any mention thereof. She sat back, rubbing her eyes a bit, and noticed with surprise that Lucius had sat quietly waiting for her to finish reading the whole thing. 

"I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I got drawn in. But I didn't see anything that looks like what we seek. Did you read through the diary?" 

He nodded. "I did not find anything, either," he said. 

"Have you checked the endpapers?" she asked. 

"Yes," he said. "Nothing was hidden beneath them, and there was nothing written on the reverse of the linen binding. Given the fact that this diary multiplies its pages as needed to expand infinitely, I doubt she would have had another diary during these years. And the dates on the entries run from 1769 to 1796- that covers the time period in question. It must be in there somewhere." 

Sighing, Hermione decided she needed to stretch and think a bit. She rose from her chair and went to lay the book flat on the round marquetry table that stood in the center of the drawing room. With a soft murmur she ignited the rest of the candles in the large chandelier overhead, bathing the book's pages in bright light.

"I think you're right," she said softly, and thumbed through the diary's entries to one that had stood out in her mind, its hastily scribbled words lacking the precision and weight of thought of the other entries. "It must be in here somewhere." 

Here it was- an entry made with the same hand but a different quill, well-cut but wider in nib than the lady's usual instrument. The ink was different, too- thicker and at once lighter. The entry was dated January 21, 1793. The story itself was one of the less interesting ones, detailing the escape of a couple and their three sons to the New World aboard a private merchant vessel. She considered the pages doubtfully, her eye scanning the page for any hint of hidden material, and had nearly given up when her gaze fell on the last paragraph of the entry. 

_'And so the _Cordon Bleu_ carries in her hold the fondest hope of all the Revolution's victims: that something good can be saved from this tragedy, and that future generations will look back upon our times with regret and resolve never to suffer this to happen again. Perhaps no one will wonder what has become of this man and his family- but they have mattered to me, and I record their story here, that their star may not fade wholly from the skies.'_

Lucius had risen from his chair while she read and come to stand beside Hermione. Now he braced his hands on the table and leaned forward, studying the diary's contents in silence. The faint line between his brows told her that he was thinking hard; she recalled seeing Professor Snape with a similar look in the past. She wondered briefly if the two men could possibly be related.

"The _Cordon Bleu_," Lucius murmured again, his voice full of speculation, and Hermione reached out to touch the words on the page with her index finger. Lucius met her eyes, and she could see the connection click in his mind even as it formed in her own.

"Do you remember how Louis XIV wore the French Blue before it was reset?" she asked softly, and felt a thrill of shared knowledge when the wizard beside her smiled with understanding. 

"Around his neck," he said matter-of-factly. "Threaded onto a _cordon bleu_." His voice was rich with satisfaction.

They both had their wands out in the next moment, and Hermione was flipping the page of the diary back and forth to study it from both sides. 

"It must be keyed in some way," she said. "Either the password is 'cordon bleu' or the word itself is the lock, but I'm not sure what is hidden within. There are many possible solutions to the riddle, and all of them are in common use around the world." 

"What do you suggest trying first?" he asked, and she felt a sudden spurt of surprise. Harry and Ron had always charged ahead without asking her opinion; between his acceptance of her expertise and the quickness of mind that let him follow her mental leaps, she was enjoying this little exercise with Lucius Malfoy far more than she'd enjoyed anything in ten years. 

"Oh... let's try this," she said, and placed the tip of her wand on the word 'cordon bleu'. 

"_Laxo,_" she said. 

Nothing.

She tried the charm on several other words with no effect. She paused, swinging her wand idly around on one finger while she thought.

"Well, she was a French witch, after all," said Malfoy consideringly after a moment. Raising his own wand, he tried "_Relâchez."_ There was an equal lack of response. 

Using 'cordon bleu' as the spellword had no result either. Hermione tried several combinations of spells on various words on the page, without making any headway. 

"Well that's the bulk of the usual ones," she said with a sigh. "Now we need to determine what personal keys the lady might have used. Something specific, perhaps, to her family, or her situation, or the concealed object." She balanced her wand across her index finger now, head tilted to one side, eyes fixed on the polished wood as she cast about in her mind for ideas.

Malfoy, however, was now staring hard at the diary. 

"I wonder," he said softly. Drawing his wand, he set the tip over the words _Cordon Bleu_. 

"Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi," he murmured. The ancient words fell from his lips with the ease of birthright, soft and solemn in the still air.

The page shimmered for a moment, and Lucius quickly lifted his wand from it and stepped back. The long scrawled column of words seemed to swell off the page for a long moment before swirling suddenly inward in a vortex of ink and penstrokes. They whirled faster and faster, until the entire two-page spread was grey with moving ink. It was impossible to see what was happening in the rapid spiral, but it suddenly crackled like electricity and slammed abruptly to a halt. An old piece of parchment now lay across the book's open spine, its edges fluttering in the wind of the vortex's passage.

"Wow," Lucius breathed, both of his eyebrows raised, and Hermione was inclined to agree. There wasn't much else to be said. 

She reached out with her wand and hesitantly probed for wards. There were several present, but none were activated; a few well-placed spells disabled them more securely, and she got a better grip on her wand before making the next move.

"_Wingardium leviosa,_" she said, and the wrinkled piece of parchment lifted from the book and slid to one side. 

Beneath it, the journal's pages lay clean, unbroken by ink or penstroke. 

They leaned over simultaneously to get a look at the surface of the parchment that had been locked in the ink of a journal for over 200 years. Sketched across its surface, in sepia tones whose color owed less to ageing than to authenticity, they found a great pentacle. There were runes and spell words written along the arms of the pentacle, and there was a fine smudge of what looked like dried blood lining the inner pentagon of the figure. 

"Well," said Hermione at last. "I believe we've found something."

TBC

Author's Notes:

For those of you who do not speak (or guess at) French: 'Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi' means 'The King is dead. Long live the King.' For anyone not familiar with that phrase, the theory behind it is that when the old king dies, the heir instantly accedes to the throne- and so the king, technically, is never dead. Handy, that. 

For the history buffs among you, the date of the wizard's journal entry (September 21, 1792) really was the day Louis XVI and his family were arrested. And the date of his wife's entry (January 21, 1793) was the day Louis XVI was sent to the guillotine and executed for crimes against France. Interestingly enough, there are still debates about who is the current 'pretender' to the throne of France. I believe the current 'pretender' is a Spaniard. This should not surprise me, given the fact that when I was in high school in Florida the heir to the Russian Empire was the then-current mayor of West Palm Beach, FL. Funny how things work that way, isn't it?

I do hope that this chapter explains the diamond. (No pun intended.) At 45.52 carats, the Hope Diamond is- according to all but one source I found in my research- the largest blue diamond in the world. I found one site that said it was the fourth largest, but in all of my research I have not found a natural blue diamond in the public eye that is larger. There is occasional mention made of blue stones held in private collections, but there are no weights given and I get the impression that they are all smaller than the Hope. If someone out there has a bigger blue rock, they must be savoring the thing in exclusive, private smugness. 

The Hope Diamond now belongs to the Smithsonian Institute (which makes no comment on the rank of the diamond according to size) and therefore it belongs to the people of the United States. Which, I suppose, means I own a bit of it myself, in a way. To be precise (yes, I am a science geek) I own 1.56 x 10^15 carbon atoms of it. It lives at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. I saw it once, back before I had an appreciation for diamonds, and it was quite impressive; now that it has its own display case, it is far more so. For more information, and a lovely photograph, please visit 

or do a Web search for 'Hope Diamond' and read away. (If it sounds big now, just think- when it was first found it was 112 3/16 carat after a rough cut.) And I think we'll be seeing more about the Smithsonian in upcoming chapters.

The details of the supposed curse are occasionally interesting as well, and might be worth a read if you're curious... myself, I'm not sure I believe in the curse. But I wouldn't accept the chance to wear the Hope Diamond all the same, thank you very much. Just in case.

Questions and comments to quillusion@yahoo.com


	5. Secondary sources

****

The Kindest Curse

by Quillusion

Chapter 5

Hermione was in to work early the next morning. It was Saturday, but the offices of UnRavel were still as busy as they might have been on a Monday; many of the firm's clients had full work weeks themselves, and UnRavel's CEO had quickly realized that Saturday hours would bring in a great deal of business. Consequently, Hermione had Sunday and Wednesday off- at least, this month. The cursebreakers took it in turns to do Saturday hours. 

She sat at her desk shortly after eight in the morning, sipping a fresh cup of tea and contemplating the day's schedule. She had a brief catch-up meeting in ten minutes, after which she would finish filing the last of the paperwork from last week's cases, and then she had her first consultation of the morning at ten o'clock. After lunch she left the office to head to Knightsbridge to investigate a safe someone had cursed shut; then it was back at the office by three for another meeting on developing a one-hour break-while-u-wait simple cursebreaking service that would be run by the entry level cursebreakers. After that it was finish up the paperwork, then head home. Should be straightforward.

Except she couldn't concentrate on her paperwork. She doodled most of the way through the first meeting, covering her scratchpad with faceted images of diamonds and pentagons, and then had to cast a clarifying spell on herself to get through her paperwork. Two cups of tea did nothing but send her to the ladies' twice in the next hour. She barely finished before her first client arrived.

She was grateful enough to have the paperwork behind her that she found it a little easier to focus completely on the consultation; she was aided by the fact that the object of her study, a letter brought in by a befuddled witch from Luton, was rather interestingly charmed shut. The woman's husband had somehow spelled the letter so that it believed it contained a birthday surprise for his wife, and would not allow itself to be opened before her birthday (still three weeks away) or in front of her. The witch had tried everything she could think of to break the curse, without luck. As she had found it in his robe pocket with a pair of thong underwear which was not hers, she was naturally quite suspicious. 

It took Hermione three minutes to get around the problem. She tricked the letter by isolating it in a small bubble of space, and then moving the time inside the bubble forward until the woman's birthday was past. The letter then opened quite easily. 

"I thought it wasn't safe to move time forward," said the worried looking woman across from Hermione at the low table upon which the curse-breakers usually did their work. 

"Normally, yes, that's true," said Hermione as she calmly cast a spell to unfold the sheet of parchment inside the opened envelope, tactfully turning it so that only her client could see what it contained. "But in this case, time is only moving forward inside this one-foot-wide bubble- not in the world around us. As there are no people, places, or events inside the bubble, we aren't changing anything, and as we ourselves are not inside the bubble, it's safe enough. There is, of course, the calculated risk that something might happen inside this little patch of space above the worktable in the next three weeks that would damage the letter- a fire, for example- but it's a slim risk, and we have charms set on the table to protect property in the event of a temporal collision."

Turning toward the opened letter, Hermione's client read its contents, and went immediately pale with rage. From the exclamations and invective which the angry witch couldn't contain after reading it, Hermione gathered that the woman's husband had been trying to conceal the contents of her father's will from her in order to secure half of her inheritance for himself, which event would have been finalized after the passage of her next birthday. Her younger brother would have inherited the whole and given half to the woman's husband; the two had apparently hatched a scheme between themselves. Given the look on the witch's face, she could almost pity them for their stupidity.

Hermione had her fee in hand and was alone in the room before a minute was up, the woman's thanks ringing down the hallway in her wake as she left for her solicitor's office. The cursebreaker smiled with satisfaction and reversed the temporal shift, restoring the letter to its usual state, and then Flooed it down to the doorman, who would hand it to the client who had forgotten to take it with her. 

That had taken less than ten minutes; she still had fifty before her next appointment. She spent five of them writing up the case and filing it, and then sat down in the window seat to think.

The past 24 hours had given her more to think about than the past ten years had done. She wasn't sure what to make of most of it, but there were several things she felt quite secure in believing without any need for further thought. The first was that there was something afoot, and that there was a good chance Voldemort was involved. The second was that this was a challenge worthy of her skills, possibly even surpassing them. More research was in order, and on a large scale. 

The third was that Malfoy no longer fit the pigeonhole into which she'd mentally poked him after the war without a second thought. Which wasn't to say he'd ever really fit in there to begin with.

She sighed and corrected herself. Not Malfoy. Lucius. She'd given him her word, and he had been wise to ask her for it; she might still be subconsciously trying to update her original ideas of him if he had not insisted that she throw them all out. She had been honest when she'd told him it would be difficult, however. She had had to make an effort throughout the evening not to interpret his every word with more skepticism than was reasonably necessary. But she was at least managing to detach the wizard whose company she had so enjoyed last night from her memory of a classmate's father, cold and harsh and intent on destroying her and her best friend. 

Her best friend. Harry. That thought brought her up short. Given what Lucius had told her last night, she wondered if she ought not to tell Harry Potter. Although, as she had accepted Lucius's commission last night, he was technically a client and the information he had shared was now confidential. She chewed on her lip a moment. She'd have to ask him if it would be all right, but she felt certain he would decline to inform Harry of any of this. 

He did not, however, have the right to forbid her to ask Harry's opinion of him. 

She scribbled a quick note and summoned an owl to deliver it. By the time she was done with her lunch, she had a reply. Harry and Deirdre had invited her for dinner at their home in Godric's Hollow.

"It's been four months since your last visit, Hermione," chided Deirdre as she took Hermione's cloak and hung it in the hall. "No one can rein Harry in like you can- you mustn't desert us like that for so long a second time." 

"I wouldn't have done it a first time if work hadn't switched hours on us like that," Hermione said, hugging Deirdre and following her into the parlor, where five year old Jarius Potter was trying to convince Harry to let him try Harry's wand. 

When the boy had been born, Hermione and Ron had both joked that Deirdre would have virtually no say in the name- and that Harry would not have much more. How they would be able to name him anything other than Sirius James was incomprehensible. To which Deirdre had replied, with a gleam in her eye, that they hadn't been able to decide which name to put first, so they had merged them.

"We liked Jarius better than Simes," she had commented dryly, and everyone had laughed and toasted the newborn baby.

"Just as well," Ron had remarked. "With a name like Simes, he'd never get a job as anything but a butler." 

Jarius heard the voices in the hall, and as soon as Hermione was visible, he was up like a shot and running to fling his arms around her waist.

"Aunt Ione!" he cried. His childhood name for her had stuck around the family, and Hermione had gratefully accepted it in lieu of the dreaded 'Mione' that Ron had favored. Even the redhead had picked up on the change, and she had been spared the less preferred contraction for three years as a result.

"Jarius!" she said, and swung him up and around. "Oof! If you get any bigger, I'm going to have to start using a charm to swing you round!"

"If you let me use your wand, I'll charm myself!" boasted Jarius, and Hermione laughed. 

"I just bet," she said. "I hope you inherited your mum's knack for charms. Your dad took a while to catch on to the basics, you know."

"Naah- not Dad!" cried Jarius disbelievingly, running back to his father. "Please, Dad? Just let me try it once?"

Harry laughed as he came to hug Hermione and kiss her cheek. 

"No, Jarius. Be patient. Good to see you, Hermione. Deirdre's right- it's been too long." 

They moved into the kitchen, where Harry was grilling steaks on a built- in grill. He'd rebuilt his parents' home in Godric's Hollow, with a few Muggle novelties built in; he even had a telephone. Hermione had also had an opportunity a year ago to savor the midwinter treat of a soak in their Jacuzzi tub. Deirdre had blushed when she'd remarked that it must get a lot of use in the cold season. 

Hermione cut up vegetables to go into the salad while Deirdre helped Jarius put butter and garlic salt on slices of French bread. Harry set the table, and when dinner was ready they carried the food into the dining room and settled down to eat. 

The talk was light, and Hermione relaxed a little in the familiar warmth of family gathered at the dinner table. She had never regretted being a career woman, but times like this made her resolve to spend more time with her friends and their families. Being an honorary Weasley and an honorary Potter was something best savored in person- and it was much easier than taking care of children of her own. Being Aunt Ione was something she could do with great gusto and minimal exhaustion. At the moment, the only requirement was to help Jarius cut his steak, which she did without prompting to give Deirdre and Harry a few minutes to eat in peace. 

"I like how you cut my steak," the boy remarked. "You make it into tiny little diamonds." He popped one into his mouth by way of illustration.

_Damn,_ she thought to herself in amusement. _There's no getting it off my mind, is there? _

She acquiesced to Jarius's request for an after-dinner 'magic trick', which had become something of a tradition when she visited.

"Which one do you want?" she asked as they moved from dining room to sitting room again. She settled into her favorite chair, a slightly overstuffed one wide enough to let her curl her feet up under her. The Potter household was not a formal one by any stretch of the imagination, and she often wondered if the mild chaos of the house in Godric's Hollow owed more to Harry's fondness for the Burrow, or his distaste for the tidiness of the house on Privet Drive.

"Do the tree,' Jarius said excitedly, jumping up and down on the couch until his mother deftly transferred him to the floor so she could sit down. 

"All right," Hermione said, and he leapt up and ran to his toybox to choose a toy for her to transfigure.

"You're OK with this?" she asked, and Harry nodded. 

"He loves this," he said with a fond look at her. "So do I, for that matter. It's always a pleasure to watch a master at work."

When Jarius presented her with a stuffed Golden Snitch, she directed him to put it in the middle of the rug, which he did. She then drew her wand, and noted how avidly his green eyes followed the slender switch of wood. Harry and Deirdre were going to have to watch their wands closely in the next few months; she'd have to make sure they knew how to lock their wands to prevent Jarius from using them. She hated reversing wand backfires on children, but she had to do it about once a month on average.

She set up a soft whispering chant, the words faint and foreign to Harry's ears. He'd never known how she did this, as it wasn't the sort of thing they had been taught at Hogwarts. He didn't think the spell was Latin based, either.

A faint blue mist drifted from the tip of her wand to wrap around the snitch, and gradually the stuffed toy lengthened, softened, and swirled up into the growing blue fog. As they watched, the fog shifted, lightened, and suddenly coalesced into a tree as tall as the ceiling, its branches arching gracefully out, tiny new green leaves fluttering in some unfelt breeze. 

"Spring!" cried Jarius, and the leaves grew rapidly and deepened in hue. Faint pink spots appeared in their midst, and within minutes the tree was heavy with blossom. The scent of cherry blossoms drifted around them, and petals began drifting down to surround them in scent and softness.

"Summer!" the boy said, and the flowers showered down onto the rug with a flush of pink. The green of the leaves deepened, the foliage glossing and rustling as the crown of the tree emptied itself of bloom.

"Fall!" shrieked Jarius, getting up and making ready for his favorite part.

The leaves deepened in hue, then turned crimson, peach, gold, and fiery orange. They began to fall in drifts, and a breeze caught them up into a great pile. Jarius launched himself into them full force, leaping up as far as he could before sinking slowly to the floor in a cloud of leaves. 

"Winter," said the boy with satisfaction, and laid on his back as fine snowflakes drifted down to cover leaves and child with a blanket of white. The branches of the tree, now bare, collected snow like icing. Jarius waited until he was almost completely buried, giggling in the warm stuff that was nothing like the snow he had played in this afternoon, and then said, "OK, Aunt Ione."

"Come here, Jarius," said Hermione quietly.

To Deirdre's and Harry's surprise, he did as she asked.

"Put your hand on mine," she said, and he folded his small fingers around her hand as it held her wand. She met Harry's eyes over his son's head, and she read understanding in them. 

"Are you ready?" she asked, looking back down at Jarius. 

His eyes were wide and shining.

"I will cast the spell. I want you to concentrate on how the wand feels as the spell emerges." She wrapped her other arm around the boy's body and held him firmly.

"_Finite incantatem_", she said. 

The tree vanished in a whoosh, the snow and leaves and blossoms evaporating into nothing, and Jarius staggered under the force of it.

The green eyes were still wide, but this time it was with surprise.

"Powerful, isn't it?" Hermione said calmly.

"Yeah," he said in a small voice.

'That's why your mum and dad want you to wait on the wand thing," she said. "It's not something you should use lightly, or until you fully understand it. You'll get to learn, but trust your parents. They know what they're doing. Promise me?"

"Promise," he said, still a little cowed by what he'd felt.

"That was clever, letting Jarius hold the wand, Hermione," Harry said a few hours later as they sipped coffee in front of the fireplace. It was Deirdre's turn to put Jarius to bed, and she had chased her son up the stairs and into the tub ten minutes earlier. "I wouldn't have thought of that. He'll be a little more careful- for a while." 

"Remind me to show you how to lock your wand, if I haven't shown you before," Hermione said. "At that age, caution wears off faster than sunblock." 

"That would be great," said Harry, looking relieved. "I owe you."

She smiled. "Here's a chance for you to pay me back right away," she said. "I know it's out of the blue, but humor me for old times' sake. I would really appreciate hearing your opinion of Lucius Malfoy- given everything that's happened since we were at school."

Harry blinked. "I don't know what I expected you to ask, but that wasn't it," he said. "What makes you ask?" 

Hermione laughed. "I've been cleaning mental house," she said, which was true enough. "I never sorted through everything that happened after the war ended, and it occurs to me I don't know what to think of the man, or the things he did. Is he a good guy? A bad guy? Both? Was he for real? What's he up to now? That sort of thing." 

Harry studied her for a long moment. "I find it hard to believe you never thought about him after the raid," he said carefully.

Shrugging, she took another sip of her coffee. "There wasn't time," she said. "And then, when there was time, it was too confusing, and it didn't really matter any longer." 

"Apparently it does," he countered, and she acknowledged his observation with a sigh.

"I know. It's complicated. But even with the things I saw and did at the end of the war, even though I know we pretty much owe him our success, it's difficult for me to decide if I think he meant it all. You never told me what you thought, and I know you were far more involved in the last phase of things than I was." She paused. "Can you tell me anything about it?"

Harry leaned back in the chair for a moment, his expression far away, but Hermione saw nothing of pain or regret in his eyes. He'd moved on from the war years, as she had; she hoped that her questions would not unearth any unhealed wounds. 

"It was unexpected, I'll grant you that," Harry said slowly. "Everything happened so fast. First there was the raid- and I still don't quite think you've told me everything about it, Hermione." He sent her an appraising look, and she sighed again.

"No, probably not. Maybe someday. Once I've gotten this all figured out." 

He nodded, having expected no other answer. Hermione could be stubborn and closed-mouthed, usually when it least suited her friends. Given that she had said the same of him in the past, he thought it a fair observation.

"I'm sure you remember the briefing you gave the Order the night of the raid," he said, more for confirmation than anything else. It had occurred to him more than once that she might have blotted out the horrifying events of that night from her memory, either intentionally or otherwise, but she nodded calmly. 

"I do," she said. "It was as brief as the name implied, and you're correct that I didn't tell you everything, but I left out none of the salient points. Lucius Malfoy and I worked together to exile Voldemort. I couldn't have done it alone, and neither could he. He's acknowledged as much." 

Harry shot her a look. "I hadn't heard that," he said. "Have you spoken to him since?"

"Yes," she said. "Once." Which was also true. That 'once' had lasted six hours, but it was still just 'once'. "Go on, Harry."

"Anyway, after you left, we were just trying to decide where to go looking for him when a letter arrived, addressed to Albus. It was from Malfoy."

_Lucius,_ Hermione mentally amended. 

"I would never have guessed he had written it, if not for the handwriting and the signature- and those both suggested he wrote it in a hurry. Albus vouched for its authenticity. It was short, considering what it said, and believe it or not, there was no condescension in it. He must not have had time for his usual verbal swordplay, because it was all just written out plain, like a Gryffindor would do." He shook his head and went to the bookcase in the corner of the room, from which he withdrew a slim volume bound in navy blue cloth. 

"Here's the diary in which Remus kept notes at Order meetings that year," he said. He set a Quick Quotes Quill to transcribing the letter as Albus read it out. Hang on a sec-" he flipped through pages until he found what he wanted- "here's what it said. I remember the gist of it, but it's worth rereading, I think, especially the last bit. I don't know if you ever heard the contents of the letter, and you might find it helpful, given your question." He sat down again and began to read the letter aloud.

"Dear Headmaster: 

"I do not doubt that you are aware of the events of last night, either through the report of the surviving Aurors or from Miss Granger herself. I must state plainly that my circumstances have altered drastically, as I have had a falling out with Voldemort over several internal but vital matters, the details of which would likely bore you. Suffice it to say that the choices remaining to me are all equally unpalatable. On the one hand, I could simply vanish and let you deal with Voldemort yourselves- but I can guarantee your judgment would not be swift, and in the meantime the consequences for my family, my friends, and all those I hold dear would be terrible, for reasons you cannot imagine and which I lack the time to explain. 

"On the other, I could choose to betray those same friends, my family and colleagues, everyone with whom I have worked for the last ten years for a cause in which I truly believed- even if you did not. I may be a villain in your eyes, but I am not a hypocrite or a coward. And yet I cannot bring myself to be a traitor in full- so I will settle for righting the one wrong I believe most crucial for the good of both your cause and mine. As surprising as it seems, our paths lie together- at least for this little while.

"If you can trust the word of an erstwhile enemy, then trust me now. At noon today I will Floo a package to the Slytherin common room. In it you will find information on Voldemort's whereabouts, his hiding places, and his weaknesses. You will also find a partial list of Death Eaters whose loyalty to him is greater than my own, and whose help he will most likely find ready in his hour of need. I expect you shall find them useful.

"As I have said, I will not betray all of my friends. I am not alone in my change in circumstances, but few of those who bear me company are aware of the fact; it would be dishonorable to expose them to a degree of censure beyond that which they may rightly deserve. If we must answer for our actions, we will do so- but we will not do it in the same court as the villain whom we each seek to destroy. 

"No doubt you are wondering about my motives. As I have said, there is no time to explain, but believe me when I say they are honorable, and that I stand to lose as much as you, if not more, unless Voldemort is stopped. If you have any qualms about trusting my information, I hope you will ask Hermione Granger if my offer is to be trusted. At the moment, she alone has the right- and the qualifications- to stand as my judge. 

"Sincerely, Lucius Malfoy."

Harry looked up at Hermione. "Now that I think about it, it makes sense that you didn't understand why Albus Flooed you as soon as you'd got home that night. This letter- his last paragraph- is why, but you couldn't have known that at the time. Albus asked you point blank if we could trust Lucius Malfoy's offer of help to find Voldemort and destroy him. Albus said you turned ash white, grabbed the couch for support, and whispered, 'Yes.' " Harry paused a moment; his friend was just as pale now as she must have been then.

"And now you come to me, asking me if you think Lucius Malfoy can be trusted? If you doubted his sincerity this much at the time, I'm glad you didn't say. You kept up a much-needed illusion of confidence."

Hermione laughed. "Oh, I knew perfectly well that he was serious about wanting Voldemort dead," she said. "After all, Voldemort had just destroyed his own house trying to kill Lucius." She shuddered. "I know Voldemort hated you, Harry, but he hated Lucius, too, in those moments. It was horrifying to see the look in his eyes. Lucius Malfoy was handed his mortality that night, and if we had not run into one another, we would both be dead. No, I know he was sincere about wanting Voldemort stopped. But I don't know why, which means I don't know what his plans were once Voldemort was gone. For all I know, he wants to be the new Dark Lord."

"I see your point," Harry said thoughtfully. "But let me finish telling you about the letter and what we did with it.

"Once Albus had your confirmation, he sent Professor Snape to the Slytherin common room to wait for the package, which arrived right on time.

"It was rather larger than we had expected; instead of an envelope or a notebook, it was a large crate of notes, letters, and meeting minutes. You know the one- you helped us sort through it in the days after the raid. I won't go over the stuff in the crate, since you were there. Just loads of letters, names, dates, places, and so on. And you already know how we used the information to track down Voldemort and... and end the war." 

Harry never talked about the last battle, any more than she talked about the raid. It had been short, violent, and had left Harry unconscious for the better part of two weeks. He'd spent another two weeks in St. Mungo's afterward, recovering. Only Albus had seen what had happened at the end, and he would not speak of it either. Hermione was just as happy not knowing what had happened; brave Gryffindor though she was, she knew perfectly well that curiosity could do far worse things to a cat than kill it.

"What about after the war?" Hermione asked. From upstairs, she could hear the faint sound of Deirdre's voice as she read Jarius his bedtime story. 

"He cooperated," Harry said simply. "He turned himself in about a month after the battle, and several other Death Eaters came in with him. They were questioned, debriefed, kept in Azkaban until everything was gotten out of them that could be gotten out of them. They came completely clean as near as anyone could tell, but they had little to say on the matter of their change of heart, other than the fact that Voldemort had become a threat to their families."

"Do you think he meant it? Changing sides, I mean?"

Harry considered that for a moment. "Yeah," he said at last. "Yeah, I do. I don't think that means he believes in the same things that the members of the Order do, but whatever it is that he believes in, it's something that Voldemort threatened. I know he's ambitious, but if he'd had other plans that went against ours, we'd have seen something of them by now, I think." 

Hermione thought about the Hope Diamond, glittering in its carefully preserved state, possibly cradling the remnants of a demon in its heart, and she felt a chill sweep across her skin. 

"I don't know," she said truthfully. 

"Look, Hermione, is there something wrong?" Harry asked worriedly. 

"No, Harry. Everything's fine. I'm just working on a case at the moment that has made me wonder if Lucius Malfoy is what we've always assumed him to be."

Harry snorted. "Are any of us?" he countered.

"True," she agreed. 

"For what it's worth," Harry said, "I know Albus believes he has undergone a bit of a change of heart. And Severus seems to think so as well- although he's also acknowledged that, given his circumstances, he can hardly deny that a man can change his mind. Albus and Severus have admitted Lucius into some small degree of confidence, and he has resumed his prior position on the board of governors of the school. From what I understand, he's never offered a word of complaint on his treatment since the war, the continued presence of Muggle-born students at the school, or Albus's policies, with one exception." He chuckled. 

"That exception, oddly enough, peripherally involves you- which makes me wonder that I never told you. I had this from Minerva shortly after it happened. 

"Severus had applied for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position a few years ago- again- and Albus had turned him down, again. And Lucius stood up in the middle of that board meeting and asked Albus why he had turned Severus down.

"Albus's reasons were the usual- Potions teachers are hard to find, the war is over, Severus deserves a rest, so forth and so on- you know the routine." 

Hermione nodded. She'd always thought Severus Snape would have made a good DADA professor, and she had told Albus so on several occasions. She was disappointed in Albus for not believing in his Potions teacher; he had done so much to deserve the Headmaster's trust, and he was not asking much in return. Just to be let out of the dungeons, so to speak.

"At any rate, Lucius said that Severus Snape had more than proved his trustworthiness and his capabilities, and that furthermore, the current Defense curriculum did not adequately prepare students for the realities which might someday await them. And when Albus asked if he had evidence that Hogwarts students were sent out into the world unprepared, Lucius had the guts to list out the names of all the Aurors killed on the night of that horrible raid. 

"He then pointed out that Hermione Granger had the sorts of skills that were required, and that if she felt Severus was the best choice, then he would back her opinion. And then he sat down."

Hermione stared at Harry, agog. "He said that?"  
"Yep," said Harry with a smile. "Everyone else was surprised, too. Snape still didn't get the job- but you won brownie points with him after that." 

She blinked. "Damn."

Laughing, Harry closed the blue book and put it back on the bookshelf. "Anyway, I hope that helps answer your question. I don't know that I trust him enough to buy a used broomstick from him, but I do trust him not to have any dealings with Voldemort's scattered remnants."

_Oh, Harry, you have no idea,_ Hermione thought with an inward smile, but she nodded. "Ironic, isn't it?" she said, and he chuckled. 

"A bit," he agreed. "But no more than the fact that he's been perfectly fair to Muggleborns since the end of the war, with no coercion or condescension. Albus says he hasn't used the term 'mudblood' since returning to the public eye- and given how often he used to use it, we know he isn't shy about that sort of thing. He still has no patience for incompetence or laziness, and he makes no bones about the fact, but he's not as harsh as he once was. Minerva tells me he's awarded several of the Board of Governors scholarships to Muggleborns on his own initiative, and with excellent reasons backing up his choices. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but he seems to be something of an asset to the school."

"In a minute you'll be suggesting he's really a marvelous guy, he's just misunderstood," Hermione remarked dryly.

"Oh," said Harry lightly, "not really. I don't think he's ever been understood, period. Figuring him out would take more exposure to him than I think I could handle." 

"Hmm," said Hermione thoughtfully. "I'll get back to you on that one." 

Harry shot her a sharp glance. "Meaning?"

"I can't specify," said Hermione, using the phrase she customarily employed to let her friends know it was work related. He immediately looked concerned.

"Hang on a minute, Hermione," he cautioned. "I gave you all this advice with the thought that this was all theoretical. If you've got anything to do with Lucius Malfoy at work, you might want to talk to Albus. Or Severus. They could give you more real-world advice. He's not a man to tangle with lightly." 

"So I've observed," said Hermione evenly, and Harry held back whatever he'd been about to add. She would know better than he. 

"Ouch- look at the time!" The clock over the mantel read eleven o'clock- Jarius had been allowed up far past his usual bedtime. "I'd better go," she said, rising from the couch with a yawn. "Dinner was marvelous, Harry." She gave him a hug before turning toward the stairs. "I'll just go say goodbye to Dee, and I'll be on my way." 

"No need to come up," said Deirdre, appearing in the doorway. "Jarius finally fell asleep." She gave Hermione a hug herself, then followed her to the front door. She patted her back as she settled the wool cloak around her friend's shoulders. 

"Don't wait so long before visiting again," she said, and Hermione knew the words were invitation as much as admonishment. 

"I won't," she said with a smile. "And maybe we can all take a sledding trip when the holidays are over and things aren't so busy." 

"That sounds great," Harry said, opening the front door for her. A few flakes of snow drifted in to swirl around their feet. "I haven't been sledding in years. In the meantime, take care of yourself, Aunt Ione." He gave her one last hug. "And let me know if you need any other advice on that subject. I'll keep my ears open just in case." 

"Thanks, Harry," said Hermione, and Disapparated with a faint pop.

Hermione's chance to talk to Albus and Severus came almost the next night. Sunday was Albus's traditional Christmas party, and Hermione- along with everyone else with whom the Headmaster had ever exchanged pleasantries- was invited to Hogwarts for the evening. The students were not invited to this particular party, as it tended to involve imbibables and the jokes were often rather off-color; Albus himself had quite a penchant for 'dirty old man' jokes, many of which involved sound effects. 

She knew that Lucius had been invited this year, as he was every year, and she had no reason to expect that he would come this year- as he had not come to any of Albus's parties in the past. Whether it was the crowds, the people who made up the crowds, or the Headmaster himself that kept the man away was hard to say. If she had thought to wonder the reason for this in years past, she would have decided that he felt the company beneath his dignity. 

But she didn't think that was the case any longer. Had he really thought so little of them, Lucius would more than likely have put in an appearance at each and every social function to which he was invited, giving a spotless impression of a man full of contrition, doing his best to make amends and cement his standing in the ranks of 'good' society once again. He'd done it once before, after all, even if he hadn't made much effort to conceal his true opinions from people who were in no position to damage his well-groomed political image. He did not, however, appear to be doing it now.

No, from what little she had learned of him in the past few days, Hermione suspected that the change in his opinions over the past ten years might actually lie at the root of Lucius Malfoy's self-imposed exile from the society of those who had won the war with Voldemort. He did still circulate among his former acquaintances, she'd been able to establish that much, but his engagements were few and limited to small dinner parties given by old friends. He had little contact with most of the former Death Eaters who had been tried and either acquitted or given light sentences for relative noninvolvement in the central conflict; as for those of his former colleagues who had taken an active role, all but one were dead- and even Lucius Malfoy had not had any love for Peter Pettigrew. Of course, Lucius rarely, if ever, came to events frequented by members of the Order of the Phoenix. And she was beginning to think she might know why. 

Pride had a role in his withdrawal, no doubt; it was humbling to have to acknowledge he had been on the losing side of the war until the last possible moment, and more humbling still for a proud man of high lineage to know that many people- on both sides of the issue- were very justifiably questioning both his honor and his motivations for changing sides. And there was one other consideration, one which she was reluctant to take into account but which was nonetheless an issue. 

He might actually have meant it. 

Remorse was an emotion utterly out of character for the Lucius Malfoy she'd known before, and the new version showed no sign of it- but if it existed, in any quantity, it might make mingling with those who could not really be described as anything other than his victims a distinctly uncomfortable prospect for everyone involved; he might feel it the better part of wisdom- and good taste- to save everyone the trouble. Especially himself. 

She couldn't say she blamed him. 

The Great Hall was full to brimming by the time she arrived, a half hour after the party started. She made her way over to the Headmaster just in time to miss the bulk of one of his toilet-humor favorites; she politely pretended not to have heard the punchline as she greeted him over the mingled guffaws and groans of his audience.

"Hermione! Delighted to see you, my dear- Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas, Albus." She kissed him on the cheeks and grinned at his irrepressible twinkling. "Having a good year?"

"Oh, as always, Miss Granger, as always. Though no one has beaten any of your school records yet- in case you were worried."

She laughed. "I quit keeping track," she said, knowing he would always tease her about this, and doing her best to keep the smug look off her face. Wouldn't do to let him know his ribbing hit home, would it?

"May I talk to you for a moment, Albus? I need to ask you a question."

He leveled that all-knowing blue gaze on her. "Is this about Mr. Malfoy?" 

"Yes," she said, half-relieved and half-resigned. All that remained was to find out exactly how much he knew. She doubted Lucius had told him everything he had told her.

The Headmaster gestured for her to precede him to his office, and she did so, patting the gargoyles fondly as she passed them by. 

"I gather Mr. Malfoy approached you with a business proposition," Albus said as he gestured for her to take a seat in the purple armchair beside the fireplace. 

"He did," Hermione confirmed. "May I ask whether he gave you the details of the case? Client confidentiality demands that I not reveal anything more to you than you already know."

"Ah," said the Headmaster. "No, he did not. I understand only that he is following a trail of cursed objects with the goal of eliminating them. Something about their representing a danger to his family."

"Yes," Hermione confirmed, biting her cheek to keep from smiling at the gross understatement. "Something along those lines. What I would like to know from you, Albus, is the same thing you once asked me: can I trust Lucius Malfoy? You have known him more recently than I." 

Albus blinked. "I'm surprised you should ask," he said. "I thought you knew him better than I did ten years ago."

"I had... unique knowledge of him that was relevant at the time," Hermione said. "That knowledge has less of a bearing on matters now. I firmly believe that he did not want Voldemort to survive, and that he meant it when he offered to help us destroy him. What I need to know now is whether his change of allegiance reflects his beliefs, or whether he merely changed sides because he and Voldemort had a falling out about the best way to reach their common goal. Do you really think he's changed his mind about purebloods, Dark magic, and the quest for power?"

Albus studied her for a very long time, the blue twinkle in his eyes taking on a faraway cast as he thought.

"You have always had a knack for asking the tough questions," he said slowly. "And I think that, once again, you know the answer better than I. Others may have seen more of him in the last ten years, but something tells me that you still know Lucius Malfoy better than any of us- which of course is not to say that you know him well, Hermione. I can tell you that I don't think he is dangerous to Muggleborns any longer- he does seem to have repented of his former zeal on that score, for reasons which I have never discussed with him. But as for power...." The Headmaster absently ran the cuff of his robe through his fingers, toying with the pewter designs embroidered on the fabric as he considered for a long moment. 

"Lucius Malfoy may be diminished as a social icon, but make no mistake, he is still a very powerful wizard, and still quite young. If he sets his mind to the task, he will no doubt grow more powerful still. It is the use of power, not the possession of it, that makes a wizard good or evil. And which of us can say we have always used our powers for good? I certainly cannot." His expression was gentle, and she sighed.

"I suppose I expected you to say that," she said resignedly. "I'm nearly to the point of asking Sybill Trelawney what she thinks."

"Of course," Albus pointed out mildly, "you could just ask Lucius."

"Yes," Hermione said with a wry smile. "I could, at that." 

_Nothing for it, then,_ she thought with an odd sense of finality. She was going to have to ask him point blank. She'd wanted to, that night in his study, but something had made her hold back until she knew what others thought. She wanted to be able to listen with an educated ear, and where Lucius Malfoy was concerned, she was about as educated as a doorstop. Well, at least now she had educated herself as much as she could. 

That thought made her snort. _Educated?_ she rebuked herself. _You won't be educated until you've heard what he has to say for himself. _She would never have believed that she could be so eager to accept secondary sources over primary sources, and so unwilling to admit the fact. It was just a mark of how nervous Lucius really did make her, all pretense and self-reassurance to the contrary.

"Thank you, Albus," she said, rising from her chair. 

"You're quite welcome, Hermione," said her former teacher. "Not that I've told you anything you needed to hear- not really. 

"You've come into your own over the years, my dear," he said kindly as they walked up the hall to rejoin the party. "When you last knew Lucius Malfoy, you were barely out of childhood. You're a grown witch now, and a formidable one in your own right; take some comfort in the fact that Lucius was the first to acknowledge that you were an adult. It really is ironic that he saw in that one moment during the raid what none of us had seen developing in years of careful teaching and nurturing." He chuckled. 

"But Albus," she objected. "No one had ever seen me do anything like that before. I completely ignored every caution we'd ever been taught in class to do what I did- I just went for it."

"That's exactly what Lucius said," Albus told her with a chuckle. The twinkle was back in full force. "I discussed the matter with him after the war, when we were debriefing him. He was furious that we'd held back a witch with your potential and power. And when I pointed out that you were Muggleborn, he snapped, 'Stop wasting time on irrelevant details.' Rather surprising, I thought."

He was right. It was surprising. 

"Perhaps you'd take a little advice from a friend who's seen a lot of people grow up," he said, and she nodded in encouragement.

"Trust your judgment, Hermione- and don't be afraid to take a little risk now and again. You're strong enough to deal with whatever the consequences might be." He smiled at her, and then left her side to cross the Great Hall toward Professor McGonagall.

Hermione stood there for a long moment, thinking about what he had said. _Albus is right. All my life I've been prepared, taught, coached. Sooner or later I have to get to what I've been preparing for, or what's the point?_

She set out for the refreshment table, determined to find some of her friends and have a good long chat for old time's sake. Shad just ladled herself a glass of punch when a shadow fell across her face. Turning instinctively to look for the cause, she felt her heart skip with surprise at the mane of artfully messy blonde hair and the grey eyes that studied her with cool insolence.

"Granger," said Draco Malfoy. "What a pleasure to see you here." 


End file.
